


Verse & Volley, Book Three

by boycoffin



Series: Verse & Volley Triptych [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Banter, Canon-Typical Violence, Choose Your Own Inquisitor, Choose Your Own Quest Choices (except for a few), Courtship, Cremisius Aclassi is ALSO sick of your shit, DLC compliant, Developing Relationship, Dorian Pavus Is Sick Of Your Shit, Dorian Pavus is a Good Friend, Dorian Pavus: Freelance Sex Therapist, Dragon Age Quest: Doom Upon All the World, Dragon Age Quest: Revelations, Dragon Age Quest: What Pride Had Wrought, Draw Me Like One of Your Orlesian Girls, Drinking & Talking, Drinking Songs, Erotic Poetry, Everything comes full circle, Explicit Language, Gender-Neutral Hawke, Gender-Neutral Inquisitor, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Letters, M/M, Matchmaking, Missing in Action, Mutually Pining, POV First Person, POV Varric Tethras, Poetry, Requited Love, Romance, Romantic Gestures, Shy Cullen, Slow Burn, Thedosian Culture, Varric Tethras' Nicknames, Wooing, Writers, everyone gets a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 01:56:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 59,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15014138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boycoffin/pseuds/boycoffin
Summary: What will become of our luckless leading men? Can ordeals of the heart ever be vanquished? Will anyone get their special biscuits after all? Find out in the final installment of Varric Tethras' steamy autobiographical romance, where erotic tension sings through the air like a thrown dagger, and shyness boils away against the heat of passion!Hold onto your breeches and prepare for...Action-packed battles! Musical numbers!And a happy endingbecause damn it, we deserved it.





	1. The Mistake, The Judgement, and The List

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'You fled,' said Dorian, getting up, 'from the man you love. His heart was in your hands and you panicked and threw it back at him like it was Hot _fucking_ Potato.'

_'...and?'_

I took a long drink. 'And I left.'

Dorian gawped at me, then shut his mouth. Then he raised one finger as if he was about to make a point, took a breath to speak, and stopped. Then he put the finger down, frowned, and put up another couple of fingers at me, as is the accepted manner in Tevinter, where a single digit apparently isn't enough.

'I would say that I cannot believe you,' said Dorian at last, 'but that would be a worse lie than any of the ones I've heard tell of in this whole sorry affair. "Sorry affair" just about covers it. Never put this in your memoirs,' he added, flagging Cabot down for more wine, 'it would sow nothing but disappointment. _He professed his undying love to me, at which time_ ,' he paused to glare, ' _I came away_. I mean, really? Really, Varric? I have nothing more to say to you.'

'Come on,' I said.

He shook his head. 'I shan't be swayed. I have reached the absolute frozen limit of my patience with your utter, utter bullshit.'

'But—'

Dorian tapped the flat of the back of his hand under his chin. 'Are you familiar with this gesture? No? It means I am full to the back teeth and cannot contain a single ounce more nonsense.'

'Yeah, I'm familiar.'

'You're a _terrible_ client.'

'Oh, like I'd pay you to—'

' _Cullen_ , on the other hand, has been a dear, sweet soul and thoroughly receptive to my advice.'

'What kind have you been giving him?'

'Sterling, level-headed, compassionate advice. You know,' Dorian added a little tartly, 'the sort you wouldn't recognize if it bit you on your _fool arse_.'

'I assume this advice-giving has been going on in your bedroom?' I said, because at that point I was fascinated by how snippy he was and also, I admit, I was wallowing in being told off. The universe had decided I needed a thorough chewing-out, and Dorian Pavus was its chosen mouthpiece.

'Yes.'

'Where you play chess and talk about things.'

'And I give him lessons in romantic endeavors.'

 _'Lessons?'_ I repeated, spluttering. 'What kind of lessons could he need?'

'Clearly they won't be applied to _you_ any longer, Varric, as you've got no idea how to respond to someone saying directly to your stupid bastard face—with earnest sweetness and a tender vulnerability that would make even the most cynical bachelor weep salt tears—that he desires you.' Dorian refreshed his glass from the new bottle Cabot had set out, filled it to the tippy-top and then leaned forward and sipped off the top inch in one pull. 'And I shall _continue_ to help him, even unto the point of holding a pillow over your blasted head in your blasted sleep, _blast_ you.'

I waited the span of the rest of the glass before I spoke again. 'Feel better?'

'Yes, thanks very much,' he said brightly. 'Now tell me precisely what happened again, in _excruciating_ detail. I'm all a-tremble with curiosity!'

* * *

When Cullen spoke, he spoke softly, in a way that made me want to lean closer, to fold myself into his arms and stay there for as long as I was allowed.

'I want _you_.'

I heard a sort of dull roaring in my ears, like the sea, which was probably my pulse. That surprised me in a distant way, because at the time I was also feeling my pulse quite a lot somewhere entirely unrelated to my ears. The edges of the room had sort of dimmed and all that I saw or ever wanted to see again was Cullen, _my_ Cullen, standing there so very close with his cheeks pink and the back of his hair sort of sticking up from running his fingers through it, breathlessly telling me what I'd longed to hear him say.

But I felt the world tip dangerously around us, or rather I imagined myself dangerously tipping Cullen's personal world, closer and closer until it fell into the fire and was consumed completely.

'I...'

A reply was forming, but _Maker_ was it a bad one, I knew it wasn't the right thing to say and I felt my gut twist in apprehension of—and disgust with—the lie that was about to fall out of my face and destroy the most beautiful thing I could fathom, and then:

A scout ducked through one of the unlocked doors, breathless and waving a scroll. 'Commander, I've got an urgent—'

I didn't wait to hear what, because the moment Cullen turned, I was out the opposite door, sliding away like a snake through tall grass.

* * *

_'You fled?'_

'I don't know if I'd call it fleeing, per se.'

'You'd be incorrect!'

I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes until I saw sparks. 'I didn't know what to tell him!'

'Maker's sake!' Dorian thumped the counter. 'Say you _want him too!'_

'Well, I didn't, all right?'

I'd wanted to say it with every fiber of my being, but the fiber of my being was too accustomed to being carded and twisted and spun into fine things for other people to look at, with all the ugly stitches and mistakes hidden on the reverse side. And because the spindle of my story had broken long before, I didn't know how to pull the—you know what, I don't know shit about spinning or looms or needlework, and I shouldn't have started this metaphor in the first place. The point is, I fucked up and I knew it.

Again.

'You fled,' said Dorian, getting up, 'from the man you love. His heart was in your hands and you panicked and threw it back at him like it was Hot _fucking_ Potato.'

'I... yeah.' I swallowed, looking at my hands in front of me on the bar. I had a smudge of ink on my finger from writing with Cullen, which felt like it had been a thousand years ago and very far away. 'Look, I understand that you're sick of this. It's a lost cause, just go ahead. Hang up your helper boots and retire.'

'Not a _chance_ ,' he said, hauling me up by the elbow and dragging me out into the yard. 'I see now that this situation is beyond my capabilities alone. We must turn to a higher power.'

'Believe me, I've been praying my ass off.' Dorian was practically frog-marching me up the stairs to the great hall. 'Where are we going?'

'Yours is not to reason why, Varric. Just follow my lead for a moment, can you do that for me?' We were passing into the hall now, getting a couple of odd looks. 'Just a few minutes of humble silence and trust in the vast and loquacious journey of your life.'

I'd been dragged to the back of the hall, now, and was starting to wonder if he was going to take me down to the undercroft and ask Dagna to make some kind of terrifying Honesty Helmet to lock me into. But Dorian went to the left, instead.

'What's even up here?' I asked. 'You're not going to throw me off the top of Skyhold, are you?'

'No, love, I'm done with thinking that even a bounce down the Frostbacks would knock any sense into you.'

The walkway kept turning at right angles, a short stretch of cluttered floor and then a short burst of stairs, repeat, repeat. Books and oddments littered the tiles, some of which were broken; a knobbly cardigan was thrown over the railing, as if left there so someone wouldn't forget it on the way out. I made the mistake of looking over the edge to see what room might be diminishing below us as we ascended the stairs, but it was dimly-lit and hard to make out, with hints of movement down in the dark. I mentally sketched out all that I could to add to my little map later, and at last we reached a door, which Dorian banged on a couple of times.

'Are you in?' he inquired through the woodwork. 'I _know_ you are, it's your halfway-signing things time, so here's an excuse to take a break!'

Signing things? 'Oh, for— _this_ is the higher power you want to appeal to?'

Dorian grinned at me like a complete bastard, accompanied by the sound of approaching footsteps. 'Well, why not? If one sinks to judging a big painted ruffian for throwing goats at the walls, one might be willing to find the means of securing amorous justice for an incomparable bell-end. There you are!' he said, turning to the Inquisitor. 'I've got a favor to ask...'

About two minutes later the Inquisitor had dragged a chair into the center of the room and stuck a terrible drawing of the big hairy eyeball to it with a pin. I was being given a serious look, the Inquisitor's head leaned heavily on one hand as Dorian laid out the charges.

'Before you stands Varric Tethras,' said Dorian, who didn't even have the decency to stand off to one side like Ruffles usually does, pacing around behind me instead. 'Rogue, storyteller, and about as romantically competent as a wet lettuce.'

'Hey!'

He shushed me. 'You don't speak while you're in the dock, Varric! Haven't you ever been hauled up for one of your many, many little crimes?'

'Uh, no,' I said. 'Typically, people are so relieved that I've helped get rid of a problem, they conveniently forget that I was burgling them at the time.'

'Regardless,' he said, ' _hush_.' He turned sharply on his heel and paced back the other way, hands clasped behind his back. 'Mr Tethras was given ample opportunity to confess his feelings in a direct, effective, and most importantly _normal_ fashion to the man he loves—'

The Inquisitor interrupted. 'Sorry—the man he loves?'

'Quite so.'

'Am I familiar with the man in question?'

'Thoroughly.' Dorian glanced at me and then added, 'Not _that_ thoroughly.'

'It's Curly,' I said miserably from behind my hands.

The Inquisitor nodded and gestured for Dorian to continue making his case.

'The dwarf before you stands accused of fleeing like a chicken—'

'Now, hang on!'

' _Exactly_ like a chicken. You could have told all, but instead you ran away.'

The Inquisitor was sitting elbows-akimbo now, eagerly following this tale of woe. 'He ran away?'

Dorian nodded solemnly. 'Like a craven _recreant_ , Your Worship.'

'I see.'

'I felt there was no recourse but to bring the matter to your attention.'

'No, you're right.'

'Nothing else for it.'

'Absolutely.'

'I am but one man,' said Sparkler, striking a theatrical pose of resignation, 'and my well-meaning intervention can only do so much!'

'That means he's run out of ideas,' I pointed out.

The Inquisitor crossed one leg over the other, then decided to do them up the other way. 'Momentous consequences hang in the balance. Have you seen the error in your deeds?'

Felt like that's all I did, these days. 'Pretty much.'

'We must find a way for these delinquencies to be rectified.'

I stood there and pondered that, looking over the Inquisitor's head at the stained-glass windows and the mountains beyond. What _would_ fix it? Obviously, all my attempts at making things right on my own had led to me fucking it up even more. Sparkler was on the right track with the mediated writing idea, and it seemed like that might lead us on to other things—if Cullen even wanted to keep the appointment for the next one, after I scampered off.

What had I done to get things to this point? Where did I go wrong?

And it really hit me then that Sparkler was correct—all I had done was _write_. Maybe, just maybe, there were situations I couldn't write or talk my way out of, personal matters too important to run away from until the difficulty disappeared.

Maybe I had to turn and face it and _do_ something.

'Your sentence,' said the Inquisitor, with steepled hands and a level stare that reminded me that hey, the actual fate of the world rested on this luckless goofball, and that kind of shit gives a person a certain amount of perspective on life's hurdles, 'is to woo Commander Cullen properly.'

'Explain to our friend what "properly" means,' Dorian suggested in his pained yet patient way, 'so he doesn't hurry me any deeper into an early grave.'

The Inquisitor ticked points off, finger by finger. 'You will compliment him, _out loud_. You will discuss your relationship, _out loud_. You will shower him with gifts. You'll spend time with him; go see him to say good morning, seek him out to bid him goodnight. You'll hold his hand, and kiss him if he fancies that, and tell him you love him. And,' an afterthought, 'you'll keep doing these meetings with Dorian and writing Cullen poems, because he likes them.' The Inquisitor sat up straighter, with a big official-looking frown and crossed arms. 'Be told.'

I puffed out a sigh. Overall, not the worst verdict I could've received. 'Yes, Your Inquisitiveness.'

'And if Cullen doesn't take you into his arms and cry "At last, my darling, at last!",' Dorian added, 'we're going to have a jolly big drink and you'll get on with your _damned life.'_

* * *

I sat on a crate of paper at the front of the press room. The big canvas was even more crowded with graffiti now; new additions included _up thee bum,_ which someone had incorrectly corrected to _up thine bum; CACK, Maker's' Merkin, hallo my nayme is MadS, yr a fuk-head,_ a rather good doodle of a bust of Tiny (which was mostly... bust), and a couple of games of Hangman, to one of which the answer had clearly been _great big knob_.

'All right,' I addressed the newsies. I'd had to whistle to get their attention, as they'd been playing keepie-uppie with a knotted handkerchief full of dried peas and chanting _rashvine rashvine inna cup, how many times will I throw up?_

'What,' I asked them, 'does romantic mean?'

We were brainstorming a special edition of The Herald that would coincide with the celebration of the Day of Andraste in Repose, which was generally an excuse for country folk to get up to good-natured mischief and do things that could be described as _tradition, innit?_ despite no one knowing (or indeed caring) why. Things like making crowns of witherstalk or childbane and tossing them at people you fancied, baking milk-dough loaves called pillow bread (which were shaped unequivocally like tits, and in some regions unmarried girls would make an impression in the back of the dough with what Dorian would refer to as 'the lady piece’), starting year-and-a-day marriages without needing Chantry oversight for the ceremony to be considered legitimate, sneaking into your crush's house and sleeping at the foot of their bed so they trip on you in the morning (after which you were considered wed for the duration of the day), and all sorts of merry little transgressions of the heart and body that one could get away with while, allegedly, Andraste was sleeping.

'Ro _mance_ is where you love someone like you want ter kiss them, ser,' said Snowdrop, eating stringy dried pears out of a striped paper sack that I recognized as being from the confectioner's shop in Val Royeaux that Ruffles liked. Organized people seemed to gravitate toward one another in odd ways, which might be why disorganized people tended to end up all in a group at the back of the room without supervision, desperately sifting through slips of paper for a stray thought they've written down, collectively wondering where they left their keys. 'When you want ter kiss,' Snowdrop went on, a big wad of pear in one cheek as she talked, 'you have to like... demonstrate it at them, an' such, so they know.'

'Great, let's roll with that. How does somebody demonstrate that feeling?'

Dollface, who had been getting a lot more practical experience than me in this area lately, said, 'You just up and _kiss_ , I reckon. Why not? S'what I do. Works, dunnit?'

'Yes, but,' I got up to pace around, 'sometimes you have to do an awful lot before kissing ever happens.'

'Oh,' said Chopper, 'like ask please?'

'Yes, asking is always a good thing to do. But even before you can ask, you have to kind of preemptively prove you mean it.'

'What's pr'emptively?' said Niblet.

'Doing it ahead of time, like setting out your socks the night before so you don't go around like "Where are my socks?" when you wake up.'

'So you... prove that you've got your socks out for them,' Niblet said, running it past me for accuracy.

In the background, Chopper elbowed Sparky and said under his breath, half-giggling, 'Oi, Sparky, get your sock out.'

Dollface seemed to have got the gist a little less crudely than the younger set. 'It's so that when you _do_ ask to kiss them, they don't think it's a joke. If you're like, you know, a person who jokes all the time, I guess.'

I nodded, and went and wrote PROVE IT on a blank spot on the big canvas, beside a nice doodle of Seeker jumping up and down on a stick-man that had X's for eyes. 'Let's figure out how to be taken seriously by the person we love.'

I turned back around and looked at the lot of them. In the few seconds I'd had my back turned, Sparky had tried to balance the keepie-uppie sack on his upraised foot at the end of a rigid leg, and now promptly fell over; Kipper was inspecting a large scab he'd picked off his elbow, which hadn't been ready so now there was a lazy thread of blood down his arm; Niblet was frozen in the act of drawing a tiny me with (for some reason) goat legs, and was trying to cover it with his hand; Chopper was scratching himself very thoroughly with a stick down his drawers; Dollface had taken the ring out of her nose and was scraping a booger off it with her fingernail; Snowdrop now had huge pouchy cheeks from sticking dried pears into both sides of her mouth; and Spike was slicing tiny baby-hairs off her own knee with her huge flippy knife.

'Let's not strain ourselves,' I added.

''Tis simple as anything,' said Spike, peering at me in a pointed and very Dorianesque way, and if she had a mustache she'd have been twirling it as she delivered her incisive commentary on my love life, 'say to him, My Special Biscuit, I Adore You And I Want To Kiss Your Mouth Forever, Come Over Here And Sit On My Lap Please, Only Carefully Mind You As I've Bust My Leg Quite Recent And You're Bigger Than Me.'

I shook my head, wondering why I ever took this job. 'You have to do something to show you're not trifling with their affections, before _that_ can work.'

'Ooh, I like a good trifle, me,' Chopper observed to no one in particular.

Kipper took a stab at it. 'You ask them to come up with a watchword...?'

'You've been spending too much time eavesdropping on Tiny’s conversations,' I said, 'but... yeah, that's also a good thing to do. Potentially. _Eventually_.' I cleared my throat. 'Any other ideas _not_ from Kipper's trove of overheard knowledge?'

'Let them know that you can keep track of things,' said Snowdrop, experienced thing-keeper-tracker-of. 'Like rememb'rin' stuff what they said to you when you first met, 'cos it's important.'

'Well put.' I wrote down REMEMBRANCE.

A quiet voice spoke up from the back of the room; Arthur-the-librarian was leaning against the door frame of my office, having come out to listen, and to give Milton some peace and quiet to translate something in Old Man Vinter or whatever Sparkler had called it.

'If you love someone,' said Arthur, 'you tell him that he's safe with you, that you won't hurt him like other people have hurt him. And you make sure he knows that even if he's scared of what could happen, you're going to be there no matter what, that you're better together than apart. You give him something that stays _forever_.'

'Well, that's... thanks, Arthur,' I said, adding SAFETY/ENDURANCE to the list. 'Good insight. Anybody else?'

'If I loved somebody very much I would sing them a song,' said Spike. 'I would sing and sing until they understood that I was singing for them, and I would sing it still more.'

I wrote down SERENADE. 'What if somebody can't sing?'

'Everyone can _sing_ ,' said Spike, rolling her eyes at me. 'Doesn't mean it's _good_ , but it's important to anyway. It's the _principle_ of the thing. Also, I'd kill someone they don't like, and say "Look! They are dead for you, I did that with my knife."'

'Noted. Sparky, how about you?'

'I'd do tricks and feats of ability to show that I'd practiced something that might please them.'

I added SHOW OFF A BIT. 'Niblet, anything?'

'And don't say _sums_ ,' Dollface told him.

Niblet looked affronted, turning and sticking his tongue out at her. 'I wasn't going to say _sums_ , Gunilla!'

'You were.'

'I weren't!'

'Hey, come on,' I interrupted. 'You were saying, Niblet?'

He looked down at his inky hands. 'I would... I would do them a very good drawing of them so they know I think they're beautiful,' he said earnestly.

'I'd do that, too, actually,' said Dollface. 'Not bad.'

'You've got a romantic soul, Nibs,' I said. 'Thank you for that, it does us all good.' I wrote PORTRAITURE. 'Chopper?'

'Oh, I dunno,' said Chopper, who was whittling something suspiciously phallic out of the stick he'd been scratching himself with. 'I s'pose if I wanted to get orf with them—'

'You're seven,' I said.

' _Hyper-thetically_ if I wanted to get orf with them,' he corrected himself, 'I'd give them stuff that makes them think about getting orf generally, but then they'd think about it having to do with me 'cos I gave it them. Y'know?'

'No-o,' said Snowdrop, head tilted curiously. 'What sort of things?'

'Well! You remember when we open those boxes for Mr Tethras and there's that engraving of all the naked Northern-type people with a fancy tube up their bottom? And the big copper di—'

 _'Yes, thank you,_ that's enough,' I said, adding PERSONAL GIFTS to the canvas. 'Kipper, did you want to chime in here? Keep it clean, for Andraste's sake, she's not sleeping _yet_.'

'It depends if it's a girl or a boy,' said Kipper, scratching the point of his ear with the end of a pencil.

'Why's that make a difference?' said Snowdrop.

'Well, if it was a girl, I'd ask her to go on fantastic adventures with me.'

Spike nodded. 'To make certain you don't get righteously murdered, I imagine.'

'And if it was a boy,' said Kipper, 'I'd... you know. I'd, er. Be more direct about it.' He went about scratching his other ear.

I wrote BE DIRECT, and silently lamented the fact that I'd got to the point where even my monster-children were giving me the same advice as everybody else and it still hadn't stuck.

'I agree. _However,_ ' said Sparky, ad-libbing, 'I would also be very sweet to him, because boys're expected to not be sweet at each other ever, so it'd be quite a nice change.'

'I see,' I said, adding AND SWEET after BE DIRECT.

'You probably don't know what I _mean_ ,' said Sparky with a big sigh.

'I might,' I said.

'People act like boys're supposed to be growly at each other all the time, even when you like them.'

'No! Do they?'

'Like, rolling round fighting sort of stuff. Well, what if I want to just be sweet to one? I can if I _want_ ,' he added, defiantly.

'You're right,' I said.

'Fuck those people who say I can't,' said Sparky.

'Don't say "fuck",' I reminded him, 'you're ten and a half. All right, everybody, now that we're in the right mindset, let's figure out what kind of stories we want in this edition. Love is in the air, people, let's go!'


	2. The Gallows, The Cells, and The Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when you're always afraid of being found out? You go through life with your hackles up, so prepared to have to make shit up that you never just let things _be._

Reader, I don't pretend to know your life, but I suspect that everybody (yourself included) has had the experience where it seems like it's just one damn thing after another. Drought followed by flood followed by blizzards sort of deal. Well, things had been like that with the Inquisition for a while—especially with the whole rifts situation, which is more aptly described as one _damned_ thing after another, popping up out of trapdoors like an assassin in a panto and breaking innocent-ish storytellers' legs for no good reason—and so of course, of _course_ there was one more thing to add to the pile. I mean, there I was, endeavoring to figure out how to perform semi-selfless acts of romantic integrity to properly win Cullen's heart (rather than just a paper version of it), and then Blackwall had to go and fall off the map.

Where did he go, you ask? Well, at the time, we didn't have an inkling. Nightingale had more than an inkling, of course, but she may or may not have had several inklings the whole time. The Inquisitor ran around asking everybody if they'd seen a big forked beard with a Marcher attached, but no dice. Then we got wind of the hanging of some guy we'd never heard of until right then, and a few of us got sat down for a serious chat.

This serious chat didn't take place on either side of a title-haver's desk, for once, but unfortunately it took place at my own, which was less than ideal for me personally. Yes, yes, I know, I had a higher percentage of desks than average (bedroom half-size upright model with a lid, shiny one in the library office, and the table in the hall that wasn't technically _mine_ I just monopolized it), but I didn't like having serious chats over _any_ of them, unless the seriousness involved was something along the lines of _here's all that money I owe you, buddy! Thanks for not sending anyone after me who's got a name like Five Teeth Fergus or Rocco the Shiv, ha ha! Please never contact me again._

The Inquisitor had rounded up Dorian and Solas on the way to me, since they could both be summoned instantly by shouting “I need an opinion on Brother Genitivi's objectivity as a chronicler!” into the rotunda.

'Have any of you ever...' Judging by the nervous cough, it seemed to be a delicate subject.

Sparkler naturally brightened, delicate subjects being his favorite to grind his shiny, perky boots into. 'If we're playing this game we _really_ ought to have some of that whiskey that makes you sound like a bone saw after you drink it.'

'...been to a hanging before?'

Dorian deflated slightly. 'Can't say that I have. We don't typically sentence people to hang, in Tevinter.'

'No, you sentence them to be boiled,' said Solas, 'or eviscerated alive by trained vultures in the market square.'

'Or thrown out of a big window,' I added.

'Nothing like a good defenestration to keep people on the straight and narrow!' said Dorian wistfully. 'Falling rather out of favor these days since flaying became so popular, I've heard. Pity. Yet another grand tradition of my homeland slipping away on the tide of modernity.' He dragged a finger down his cheek as if to represent a single tear.

The Inquisitor looked round at us. 'You done? Because we think Blackwall went to Val Royeaux to see a man hanged, and I need moral support.'

I raised my hand a little. 'Executions in Kirkwall are even more popular than house fires. Everyone turns up.' Including the street vendors who sell spun sugar and roasted corn off of a little tray they wear round their neck. The last one I'd witnessed wasn't on purpose— _none_ were on purpose after the first one—and I'd mostly spent it trying to get to the edge of the crowd so I could get away before the horrible noise started. If you've ever seen a person hanged, you'll know what horrible noise I mean, but I hope you don't.

Sparkler was making that face that he does whenever I reminisce. 'The more I learn about your abysmal little cesspit, the more paradoxically fascinated I become.'

'So yeah,' I said, ignoring that remark, 'I've been to a hanging.'

The Inquisitor gave me a serious look. 'Since you know what to expect, would you be willing to come with me?'

'Fine,' I said.

'Only if you're sure. You know I respect your boundaries.'

'It's fine.'

'I don't make you go into caves anymore.'

'And I appreciate it,' I said. 'The tiny hairs on the back of my neck hardly ever stand up and creep around anymore. But honestly, I'll be fine.' I tipped my head to indicate Chuckles and Sparkler. 'And if you're taking this pair of ding-dongs, I'm sure they'll start an argument about whose culture kicked off the use of hemp as the preferred fiber for nooses, and we can spring any convicted felons while they duel it out in the street.'

* * *

It went as well as could be expected, which means: badly. It went very, very badly.

Not that the guy got executed—Cyril Mornay got let off the charge, but he looked like death regardless. I don't know if you can just bounce back from having been condemned to hang by the neck until dead. So, good on him for even being able to walk away from that without pissing himself in terror. I hope he lived out the rest of his days comfortable and happy and propped up on big pillows.

But the fact remains that Blackwall turned himself in, and apparently wasn't the Real Blackwall, which was a big deal because that sort of thing matters when you've been on the run from a murder-most-foul charge for over half a decade.

Not the precise variety of emotional discomfort I'd expected when I agreed to attend. I was starting to wonder if the horrible noise would've been kinder to endure.

'I've got to talk to him,' said the Inquisitor, in a tone that was hard to read even for a veteran tone-reader and -describer. 'Varric, I can't just _leave him_ down there in the cells—'

'You can,' Dorian suggested, on the edge of the conversation. 'That's what jails are for, really.'

I gestured for the Inquisitor to follow me. 'Come on, then, you're not going in there alone. The Bicker Brothers here can man the door.'

'Delighted to be included,' said Dorian. 'Aren't you, Solas?'

Solas didn't say anything, his thoughts clearly on some troubling memory in the middle distance, and I could relate.

The Inquisitor and I went down into the belly of the prison, which was surprisingly empty considering the turbulent times we lived in. A steel-masked guard pointed out where to go, and when we got to the final set of stairs I hesitated.

'I'll just... let you two,' I said. 'Uh.'

'Right,' said the Inquisitor. 'No sense in making you... um.'

'Yeah.'

'All right.'

'I'll be here.'

And I was left to myself.

I peered at the stones that made up the walls, the little frilled fingers of moss here and there. I noted a divot in the floor, where a slight drip from the ceiling had pummeled away the flagstone beneath, over years of gradual and bloody-minded determination. I remembered something Tiny had once quoted at me about two-handed weapon technique, about how standing in one place with loose joints was almost always more effective that bashing in every direction, because the soft and patient (he said) always wears away the hard and complacent. I could detect the shallow trenching in the stonework, too, worn down by the many feet that had gone back and forth to the cells from the daylight world beyond the big door. I was sure that some of the people who entered no longer left footsteps when they exited.

I'd always liked the big grizzled bastard, in a way. Blackwall was straightforwardly Just Some Guy, with few interests to keep a conversation going, which meant he was well-suited to action sequences with only the occasional bit of dialogue; fun to bounce things off of and to confront with unusual situations, because he was so damned _solid_ that whatever you threw at him came pinging right back into your hand with some accumulated topspin. He had a mysterious past, a talent for really just _wailing_ on a guy with a hatchet, was easily offended, and talked in such a crusty, prickly manner that sometimes I wished I'd come up with him, myself.

He seemed _promising_ , is what I mean. The sort of person that things happen to because they stumble into the sphere of a Story, with a decent beard and just enough skill to become indispensable. He was a protagonist waiting to happen. I've known people like that, and still do, so I'd known to keep a close eye on him. His reticence to discuss his personal history had struck me as being in same vein as not wanting to talk with Bull about different cultivars of banana—it was just one of those things he wasn't comfortable discussing, because for whatever reason, the subject got in amongst him and gave him the creeping willies. And now, at least when it came to his past, we knew _why_.

He didn't want to talk about it because after you got a few basic facts out of the way—Warden recruiter from Markham with an interest in jousting—the fake persona stopped, and real personality took hold. That was a dangerous corner to write yourself into, because if you got too comfortable, if you let your personality get you into a conversation or a scenario where factual self-representation was important, you could very easily fuck yourself right out of character and smash the fourth wall as easily as if it were made of crackers.

I don't know if any actors are reading this shit, but do you know how hard it is to get back into character if the character you're playing is just that little too much like yourself? Sounds like it'd be _easier_ , doesn't it? Like you wouldn't have to make any effort, because it's right there, a person who (on some kind of spiritual level) is within arm's reach, or that you can step into like a pair of familiar pajamas. But that's not how it works, not really. What happens is that you stop being able to tell the difference, sometimes, and that means that not only do you run the risk of revealing the con accidentally, but whenever things fall apart (and they inevitably will), you're left not knowing who in the seven hells you are anymore. To choose that path for oneself willingly was the mark of either an idiot (which would be Iron Lady's vote, obviously), or someone very, very hurt.

But _Maker_ , I respected him for it. I couldn't say that—not in present traveling company and perhaps not at all—because nobody wants to hear you root for the traitor when they don't fancy the odds, themselves. But I felt a sort of kinship with him that I wouldn't be able to explain to anyone, even if they asked. Blackwall had done something that I didn't know other people did, _ever._

He told himself into existence. He told himself that he was a better man, until he was. He told himself he was a Grey Warden now, that he was honor-bound to protect others, to make a difference in the world before it all went down in flames. And here he was, doing that exact thing! Even when it meant offering himself up for execution when he'd just settled into one of the most well-funded gigs in Thedas, he stubbornly chose the Protect People option. He did something even I hadn't managed, in all my weaving and darning and embroidering of my own story: He became someone else, and the only reason anyone found out was that he told them _on purpose._

And now he might die.

That's what you get for lying about who you are on that kind of scale. Yes, everyone lies about what kind of person they are, even if it's just to themselves—they think they're a philanthropic sort of fellow yet never drop a coin in a beggar's bowl, or they pretend they're an excellent gambler even though they always lose. These are medium-sized lies, in the grand scheme of things—small ones, of course, being stuff like 'I'll get to bed early tonight' and 'Arbor Blessing doesn't smell like a cat wee'd on it at all'. But the _big_ lies? Those are the ones that drop you straight in the shit. You may think you've avoided this fate, because it doesn't seem like a straightforward path at the time. You meander, and avoid scrape after fight after revelation, but the destination is always the same, whether you're alive to witness it or not: They Found You Out.

What happens when you're always afraid of being found out? You go through life with your hackles up, so prepared to have to make shit up that you never just let things _be_.

Poor sod, I thought.

Then I wondered if Blackwall would think _I_ was a poor sod, if he knew. I was glad he didn't know—I could imagine the look on his face, the tone of his voice. _You got your dainty smalls in a wad because you made up a fantasy man and dallied for a few months? You deserve whatever's coming to you for that sort of self-important toss._

It's not like there hadn't been anything at stake or consequences that had an impact on people's lives. But as with pretty much every problem in my adult life, it paled in comparison to whatever kind of Life And Death Hang In The Balance stuff the protagonist and protagonists-in-waiting were dealing with at the time, so it was wisest to shut the fuck up about it if I didn't want to risk sounding pathetic and selfish.

I may have been the main character of my own life by default—being, as it were, the one operating the narrative point-of-view, always onstage even when everyone else bowed off—but I didn't see myself as the protagonist of my own Story. Maybe Blackwall hadn't in his own, either. He was a supporting character, hitting things and making timely jokes and announcing _one less to worry about!_ , all the while avoiding the harsh scrutiny of the audience, because with scrutiny comes analysis. Shit, he'd acted in support even when he was _alone_.

And now he might die.

To me, lies have always been easy. Lies are, on occasion, a fun and rewarding use of your time. But I always knew where I stood with them: on the path to ruin. I had failed in my task to walk my way into fiction, and the finest punishment that Fate could wreak for me (or is it wring? Wright? Present tense of 'wrought') was that I couldn't simply walk back _out_ of it, either.

It was while I was submerged in these thoughts that I heard a familiar footfall on the stones. I can't tell you why it was so familiar, because I don't think I'd ever paid all that much attention to the sound of him walking, but the instant I was conscious of the sound of his boots across the floor, I knew it was Cullen.

Well, you can imagine how I took that, can't you? I mean, I'd been anticipating that I could do all these grand gestures of passionate intent, or at least get started on them, before I was in a room alone with him next. And the alone-with-him-next part was supposed to be, if all had gone according to plan, mediated by Sparkler, and there could have been verses and flirting and lingering glances across the desk in the mote-glittering slices of afternoon sun through the arrow slits. But we were in a dank little passageway, instead, lit by the overcast gloom from barred windows and a poorly-dipped torch, an arm's length away from each other as we each stood around at a loose end, neither of us belonging there or knowing quite what we were supposed to do with ourselves yet, beyond waiting for the Inquisitor and thinking about the problem at hand and feeling like we should have guessed, should have noticed signs of deceit, because in retrospect they were obvious.

And while I got the impression that both of us were champing at the bit to talk to the man of the hour, we would doubtless have very different things to discuss with our erstwhile companion. While Curly might have been a blushing Fereldan rose when it came to matters of the heart (not to mention matters of the bedchamber), he had an unflinching command of language (not to mention longswords), and was the first to respond when any of the men under his authority had done something that merited a hearty ticking-off. Firm, as they say, but fair, and with a set of lungs on him that could bring plaster down from the ceiling when he got into the swing of a stern reprimand or set of important instructions. Considering this, and considering the unwavering, steely coldness he'd employed on that horrible day he'd dismissed me from his office, I was almost grateful for the latter.

Almost.

And there I was, of course, thinking that no matter what I _intended_ to say to Blackwall—meaning, what I knew to be morally correct in the light of him having carried out senseless acts of murder, as opposed to the sensible, practical killing we got up to on the Inquisition's time—what would come out of my mouth was something else entirely, possibly even along the lines of _Well done on that cover-up, it convinced everybody!_

I used to have this notion that if people looked me in the eye when I talked, they could see my thoughts and know everything awful going on in there. And while I'd grown out of that superstition by the time I was old enough to go whoring if I'd felt like it—I figured I would've been thrown off the docks by that age, if people _could_ read my mind that easily—it was still hard to meet Cullen's eyes. I was just considering going topside to find Sparkler or a blank scroll, when Cullen spoke.

'Is the Inquisitor...?'

'Down there with him.'

'Ah.'

When I dared look at him fully in the second-hand light, it was to see that his collar-feathers were scribbly and rucked up by the wind, his cheeks pinked by it, and I understood with what haste he must have ridden here upon receiving the messenger bird we'd sent after the dramatics in the gallows that morning, just on the heels of dawn. There was probably a dotted line of eight or nine exhausted horses in Inquisition stables from here all the way back to Skyhold, to have relayed him to Val Royeaux so quickly.

I held out my flask in offering.

'Really, Varric? Not at a time like this.'

I shook my head. 'It's coffee, I promise.'

He looked grateful. 'I could certainly use some, then.' After taking a pull from it, he sagged and sighed, 'Maker, this is a _fucking_ mess.'

I just looked at him.

'What?' he said.

I shrugged. 'I've just, uh. I've never heard you say "fuck", is all.'

'Never?'

'No occasion in particular comes to mind.'

We lapsed into silence again. I took the flask back and drank some of the tepid coffee, myself. As usual, we seemed to need either a piece of paper or something to drink separating us, lest we succumb to a lack of stage business.

He leaned back against the wall opposite me. 'Any idea how the Inquisitor's taking all this?'

'Said we couldn't just leave him down there, but that could mean a lot of things.'

'We could leave him down there,' Cullen said darkly.

'Sparkler suggested as much. I guess you've picked up plenty from his lessons, eh?'

'I—his what?'

I cleared my throat. 'Lessons,' I repeated. 'That he's been giving you.' I resisted the urge to drag a hand over my face. 'In his bedroom...?'

Cullen looked perplexed. ' _Lessons._ '

'So I'm told.'

'And what am I meant to be learning in these lessons?'

'How to—' I cut myself off before it was too late, 'look, Curly, never mind. He probably meant it as a joke.'

But Cullen seemed relieved to have his mind on something other than the Blackwall debacle, for the moment. 'I suppose it was too much to hope for that he'd keep our conversations private,' he said. 'Dorian does love to talk.'

'Constantly.'

'And flirt,' Curly added, with eye-rolling fondness.

'If he goes five minutes without insinuating something saucy, I think he starts to turn blue and pass out.'

'Wickedly skilled at chess, though, even the Seheron variant that uses three armies simultaneously, on a double board.'

'You don't say?'

'Takes days.'

'I'm sure. How does that work, who plays the third army?'

'The third represents the Fog Warriors; you alternate rounds, trying to undermine your opponent's primary army as much as possible one move at a time.'

'Surprised I've never heard of it.'

'Apparently he learned it from the Iron Bull.'

'Aha. Bull can play it in his head, you know.'

'I've heard Solas plays a good game, as well, but he's declined my offers.'

'Damn shame. I wonder who would win?'

'Oh, him, probably,' said Cullen, then changed the subject without so much as a blink. 'Are you looking forward to next week? If we're still on, I mean...' the weight of reality seemed to settle back onto us, 'considering the circumstances.'

'I'd just assumed you would be—'

'You're right, probably best to set personal matters aside while—'

'Only you're going to be so busy with this shit and—'

'Of course I'd love to write with you again, but if you're concerned about it taking too much of—'

'I can't _wait_ ,' I said, as earnestly as my cynical constitution would allow.

His ears went a bit pink. 'I... ah.' He looked down at his hands briefly, then back up at me. 'Good.'

'Good,' I agreed.

We exchanged the flask again, dialogue having come to another of its inevitable lulls.

'Varric,' he said after a moment.

'Present.'

Cullen's voice dropped just a bit softer than conversational volume, and our proximity in the closeness of the passage made it—quite abruptly and without even obtaining our signatures first—an intimate moment.

'I must ask you something, and I...' he hesitated, like he didn't want to have to specify but felt it was necessary, 'I need you to be perfectly honest with me.'

_Fuck._

This was it.

I'd say it was the Moment of Truth, in the sense that people usually use that cliché, but the fact that I didn't even know whether I'd tell the truth or not, myself, even as I was saying to him, 'Cross my heart,' well, that makes it less a Moment of Truth and more a Moment of Crisis.

And what made it worse was that Cullen had gone very serious, very still. He didn't rock on his heels, mess with his hair, or anything he usually did when we hemmed and hawed and glanced away from each other. He was just standing there, looking at me in a way that felt for all the world like looking _through_ me after all, and as he handed back the flask he let his hands linger, warm and slightly rough to the touch, over mine as he spoke.

'I need you to tell me that you are who you are,' he said. 'It sounds foolish, I know. I _know_ it's stupid.'

I shook my head, and it took me a good few seconds to get my tongue around the right words. 'No, it's not. It's really not.'

'I just...' His hands went tense over mine for an instant, but didn't grasp or press. Without possessiveness, just touching, allowing me to feel what he was going through in some small way. 'I can't abide the thought of losing you, not... not after we've only just...' He trailed off.

'I know what you mean,' I murmured.

'Tell me that I _know_ you,' he said. 'Think of what you've given me and shown me, and tell me the truth. Are you the man I believe you to be?'

What kind of a question is that to ask a guy in a jailhouse hallway, when a friend's life hung in the balance in the next room, and might very well actually _hang_ if certain individuals didn't think him worth keeping around? What kind of a question was that to ask anyone, especially _me_? Shit, who was Cullen to even ask?

Hearken back to the start of this memoir, reader, and picture in your mind how I'd sat at my desk with all my pencils sharpened down to nubs as I contemplated the nature of identity. If it was that difficult to distill someone's characteristics into something as simple and pure and straightforward as a cartoon to make a farm-kid smile, back before I'd known what I now knew about Cullen, then how much harder would it be to weigh the grimy contents of my soul against the mask I put on every day, much less the brand-new gilded one I'd custom-made for Curly to look at? To tot up the pros and cons and actually, accurately measure myself against what Cullen must think of me?

What _did_ he think of me? Surely it wasn't all bad, if we were having this conversation at all. I remembered him underlining _ideal_ , and circling it to get the point across.

_You're strong enough already._

_Then so are you._

My gut instinct was to run. My brain instinct was to say yes, even though I knew that was wrong.

So I tried to listen to my heart, instead. To actually listen to it, not just wave it away and make something up that seemed like it came from that general area. I listened, and let it grow.

'I'm not,' I said, and hastily added more to keep Cullen's face from crumpling in grief, 'not _yet_. I'm trying! Maker, I'm trying. I promise.' I took a step closer to him, which was a long way in such a small space. 'I _swear_.'


	3. The Cynic, The Labor, and The Way Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't walk through the bodies on stilts, untouched and holy. You can't save a drowning man if you aren't willing to get wet, yourself.

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat behind us, and we sprang apart.

'Sorry if I'm interrupting,' said the Inquisitor, coming up from the lower cells. 'Cullen, can we talk?'

'Of course,' said Curly, and they went off up the stairs to do so. I considered following them, but at the moment I didn't feel like finding out whatever the Inquisitor had in mind for how to proceed. Later. I could put off that knowledge, even if only for a little while. I could tread water in the hope that our friend wouldn't sink.

I went down the sloping steps to Blackwall's cell. First look of him I got, he had his head in his hands.

'Hey,' I said.

He didn't look up. 'What do _you_ want?'

Well, good question. Perfectly reasonable to ask. He had every right to be irritable, right now. Nooses, even just thoughts of them eventually being around your neck and squeezing the life out of you, were abrasive bastards. And right now, if Blackwall was too, that was fine by me. I'd be the same, in his position.

'I don't know, I thought you might like to see a friendly face.'

Blackwall glanced out through the bars at me. 'Is that what you call it?'

'It's not _unfriendly_ ,' I reasoned.

'Don't let them think you're on my side,' Blackwall warned me, averting his eyes. The far wall of his cell must've been really damned interesting to look at, because he kept going back to it like a moth to light.

'Them? Who's them?'

He gestured toward the stairs, encompassing the notion of the Inquisitor, Cullen, the rest of the Inquisition, Orlais, possibly the world. ' _Them_. It's comfortable in their good books, isn't it? Don't willingly throw yourself into their bad ones.'

'Oh, you mean like you did?' I shrugged. 'Suit yourself. But I think that you know why I'm here.'

'Because the Inquisitor asked you,' he said flatly. We both knew to what lengths we would go—not just the pair of us, but _all_ of us—if the Inquisitor asked.

'While that's... not incorrect, I meant something else.' I got a flask off my belt—not the coffee one—and slipped it across.

'What's this?' Blackwall asked.

'Poison,' I said.

He laughed hollowly, putting up a hand in refusal. 'That's the caitiff's way to go. I'll die on the scaffold, whether it satisfies the people or not.'

_'Temporary_ poison,' I elaborated. I pulled the cork and waved it in his direction, the astringent pong of the liquor gashing the air. 'Punishment. Might help ease the misery a bit.'

'I _made_ this misery,' he protested. 'I signed up for it, and I took the gold a man deemed it to be worth. No punishment can be enough.'

'Fair, but you look like shit.'

He snorted. 'Hah. My appearances aren't deceiving, for once.'

'Do I need to pour it into you with a funnel? Just take the damn flask.' I made an approving noise as he did so. 'If nothing else, maybe you can melt the lock off with it.'

Blackwall took a sip, winced (everyone did, after the first sip), and seemed to relax a little at the familiar horribleness. 'Maker, that's foul. Who'd willingly distill this stuff?'

'This guy Tiny knows in New Denerim,' I said.

'New one's up and running now, is it?' said Blackwall. 'Hell of a time to rebuild a city.'

'Don't I know it.' Kirkwall was looking to them for pointers.

'The old one's barely stopped smoking.'

'Well, they _did_ get their faces torched off by and Archdemon.'

Blackwall took another sip from the flask. 'That's what it feels like, drinking this.'

'Had to have got the recipe idea from somewhere,' I said. 'Listen, Hero—'

' _Don't_ call me that,' he snapped.

I ignored him. 'Whatever happens, just know that I don't think you're a complete asshole, all right?'

He scowled at the flask, but didn't aim the expression at me. 'I was responsible for the deaths of innocent people.'

I sat down on the flagstones in the little walkway between cells. 'All right. All of us are.'

'I followed corrupt orders.'

'Every soldier or merc's done _that_. Whether they knew it at the time is another story, but it's not like you're the first unlucky grunt to find out too late that the blood he just spilled was for somebody's personal vendetta and not a Glorious Victory for the Cause.'

Blackwall made a grumbling noise, but didn't respond. I continued.

'We're all responsible for the deaths of innocents,' I said. 'You can go down that rabbit hole until the sun burns out. Remember all those Freemen in the Graves? The apostates, even the damn Venatori? Every suit of armor has a person inside, and every person is connected to other people. We might've saved a lot of lives by taking down some big brute with an axe who wanted to watch the world burn, and that might play some part in keeping it from burning, in the end, but that guy might've sent home his ill-gotten gains to feed his kids, or his ailing grandmother. And it's the damnedest thing, but maybe when the coin stopped coming, they had nothing left. No flour for bread, no thatch to fix the roof for the winter, eventually no life. Does that mean we killed them?'

'I didn't peg you as a philosopher,' Blackwall muttered irritably.

'I'm not,' I said. 'I'm tired and cynical.' I was kind of surprised I hadn't outright congratulated Blackwall on his clever ruse yet, but sometimes—shocking, I know—I didn't go with the first option that dropped into my head.

'Cynicism is a school of philosophy,' he pointed out.

'Well, _mine_ isn't. Mine's a sort of blister from the world pressing on me too much.' I adjusted my belt pouch for something to do. 'And I'm sore enough to think about this shit all the time, because nobody gives you a straight answer about it, even if you ask nicely.'

Blackwall nodded. He knew all about not having the answers.

'So,' I went on, 'while I agree that what you did was selfish and stupid, I don't think you're a villain.'

I'd met villains. They tended to cackle and say things like _I'll show you all!_ which wasn't typical Blackwall behavior. The most he ever showed us all was the back of his head, while he sat off by himself away from the rest of us around the fire, defiantly staring down the night as a whetstone sang across the blade of his weapon. Blackwall didn't seek out his enemies; he _waited_. I realized I could have learned a lot about mud settling, from this guy, if I'd been paying more attention.

'I mean, come on,' I said. 'You know what I've done, and people still want me around.'

'Doesn't seem as bad,' Blackwall objected.

'Oh, really? So the fact that me and my big guileless friend and my big stupid brother dug up the ugliest thing in the world and let it escape, effectively ensuring the terrible deaths of thousands of people—that doesn't strike you as being _as bad?'_

He looked uncomfortable. 'If you put it like that...'

'I do put it like that.' I took off my gloves, untied the strip of leather that held my hair back and retied it more snugly. 'You don't need punishment, Blackwall, you need _perspective_.'

'What about justice?' he said miserably.

'If somebody who hurt you very badly was hanged, would you feel any better about it?'

'Yes!' But then he thought about that. 'Probably not.'

'Eye-for-an-eye doesn't work,' I agreed. 'Looks tidy on paper—oh, everything's balanced and fair, that's sorted, then!—but in reality you just end up with two guys who have to get all their forty winks on the same side of their face.'

'I still deserve to hang.' He held onto his anger at himself like it was the only thing keeping him from drifting away. 'There were _children_.'

Once again, I was reminded of me. I'd been down this road more times than I could count, and with a _lot_ more fluid ounces of some nerve-destroying intoxicant already down the hatch. Hawke and I had struggled our way through conversations like this, time and again, night after exhausted night, only this time I was on the opposite end of the dialogue. Let this be a lesson, kiddos: If you listen to your smarter, kinder, generally better friends, you might just learn how to follow the steps enough to try novice-level Goodness on your own.

And while my argument was far from the most morally shiny, sometimes shininess was the last thing you needed. Sometimes the battlefield was so muddled and muddy, so churned up with guts and blood and fear, that a clean man stood out a mile. You couldn't be too Good, because that made you an easy target. But a little sin, a little guilt? That gave you the appropriate sheen of filth so you could get on with your job unimpeded. You can't walk through the bodies on stilts, untouched and holy. You can't save a drowning man if you aren't willing to get wet, yourself.

And yes, children had died. That's a hell of a thing. Hanging Blackwall wouldn't avenge them, however, and couldn't make it so they hadn't been killed; the bastard who had sealed their fates had taken his own life already. Blackwall and his men had been tools in the hands of a political schemer. Tools that, for reasons of their own—whether it be wealth, threats, preserving reputation, fear of alternatives, securing their future, or a thousand other things—felt it necessary to finish the job they were told to do, even when it went wrong.

Cullen would be the first to tell you that any good leader knows not to give orders like _do whatever you feel is necessary_.

'You had a choice, early on,' I said. 'Somewhere in there, you had a choice, and you made a bad one, okay? We agree on that point.'  Maybe, I mused, I'd selfishly wanted to talk to Blackwall so I could bounce these ideas off him. He was so good at sending things pinging back. 'You chose the wrong path. But that doesn't make you _evil_.'

'Is that what you think?' he said, the flask gripped tight in his hands. 'What makes a man evil, if not something like that?'

'Would you say I'm evil?' I asked, genuinely curious. Most people would consider that a combative thing to say, a challenge or obvious fishing for reassurance, but I really just wanted to know what he thought. Where the line was.

'Not my responsibility to decide,' said Blackwall tersely.

'All right. What about some guy who couldn't stop poison gas from filling an entire street, which ended up killing thirty-odd people before it could be cleared away? Was he evil for not being fast enough?'

Blackwall said nothing.

'How about somebody who willingly withheld information that could save maybe thousands of lives, just to protect one person he cared for more than life itself, who had already seen enough pain to last eternity? Or, here's a good one, somebody who made up a fake person to be—he lied and kinda strung someone along for months—because he was scared he wasn't good enough to be loved?'

Silence.

'Context matters when you decide whether something is evil, all right? Context. Gimme that.' I took the flask back from him and put the cork in it. 'No sense crushing the thing. Besides, you've had enough perspective.' I got to my feet. 'One act of cruelty, even followed by sneaking and lying and hiding, does not a villain make. Trust me, I've written enough of them to know.'

'What do you do if no one _believes_ that?' he asked. His voice was quiet, and though he was still bitter, still afraid, it was steady.

'I ask myself that every day, Hero,' I told him, putting a hand on his shoulder through the bars. 'But I keep trying anyway, and do the job that's in front of me.' I moved my hand away, letting it drop. 'And hey, if this situation goes south, at least you know where you stand with me, all right? I may not be able to convince anybody to let you go, but I was brought along for moral support, so that's what I'm trying to do.' Dubiously moral support, I'll admit, but it was better than nothing.

I left, having said more than enough and regretting about three-quarters of it. I found Cullen at the top of the stair and had no idea how long he might've been listening.

'Varric,' he began, but I jumped into the conversation before he could lead it.

'Everything squared away, Curly?' I figured it was best to find out now, before I had any more time to mull over the conversation I'd just had. 'Fate decided, or whatever it is the Inquisitor plans to do here?'

'We're sending word to Lady Montilyet,' he said.

That could've meant a lot of things, but if our diplomat was getting involved at this stage and not just doing cleanup efforts after a body was cold, things might be looking up. 'Good to know. Anything you need me to do?'

'Not at present,' he said, 'aside from accompanying the Inquisitor back to Skyhold. There's no need to stay on here, we have things in hand.' He left unspoken what we both already knew: it was going to be a seriously depressing ride.

'Can do,' I said.

'How is he?' Cullen sounded like he wished he didn't want to ask, but couldn't help himself. 'I don't think my speaking to him right now would be the best idea, but...'

'Well,' I said, 'he's surly, morose, and prone to surprisingly cutting personal remarks, so pretty normal Blackwall behavior.'

'I can't seem to call him by his real name, either.'

As far as I was concerned, Blackwall _was_ his real name. So what if he took it off a dead guy? We took stuff off of dead guys all the time. And unless you were from one of those Dalish clans Daisy told me about where everybody has to have a unique name made up of specific linguistic components because something-something oral tradition, pretty much everybody's name belonged to at least one dead person already, if not hundreds.

So what if he co-opted an identity along with it? People changed all the time. You move to a new city, introduce yourself as John Smith or Max Mustermann or similar, take a new trade and get on with your life, leaving the old one someplace else. Kirkwall was notoriously packed with citizens of the Joe Placeholder variety; also, conversely, scholars with nothing better to do have gone over the censuses with fine combs to determine how, exactly, did so many people in (but not _born_ in) Kirkwall have names that had never occurred on any census anywhere else in recorded history. If you're going to uproot and start anew—some people apparently think—you should use the opportunity to rename yourself something fantastically unique. I once met a pretty good illusionist named Zebbo Moog, who told me over drinks that he'd been named Tom Brown Junior by his parents and had endured the most uneventful life imaginable, chandling stringbeans or something, until darkspawn decided to pop up out of the bottom of Ferelden, at which time he went north, changed his name, got a big tattoo on his face that looked like a port-wine stain and became a charismatic and high-earning street performer who could barely move for all the attractive young ladies who threw themselves and their fripperies at him. And, he'd added with a certain amount of smugness, his wife never tracked him down.

Compared to some people, Blackwall had gone about it in a decent way. He made sure that a good man was allowed to carry on, and that a bad one wasn't. Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the small lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is Known. I knew I'd probably be in the minority if I were to pipe up about that, so I didn't.

'Give it time,' is all I said.

* * *

Working with the Inquisition meant a certain awareness of what one was in for. If you were a smith, you knew you'd swing your hammer until the muscles in your arms got so big you had to turn sideways to get through an Orlesian window. If you were a kitchen boy, you knew you'd be peeling potatoes until you developed a sort of starchy pair of gloves that never washed off. If you were a training dummy, you knew (as much as a straw man can know anything) that you'd have to be restuffed every two days, that recruits would paint a stupid face on the wad of sacking that's supposed to represent the enemy's head, and that you'd acquire a fond but insultingly anatomical nickname to differentiate you from the other scarecrows lined up to take their lumps. And if you were part of the Inner Circle—which was named by somebody who didn't have the presence of mind to call it something with a little more enigmatic exclusivity, such as the Bone of Contention—you knew you'd probably get cut down by some hideous monster or Tevinter supremacist, possibly even both at once. One's untimely death was just part of the job. Albeit the _last_ part.

The thing they didn't tell any of us when we signed up is how emotionally exhausted we'd all be.

We were all broken people; that was the accepted standard. We'd ended up fucked up, or fucked up other people. We'd limped our way through the Blight and the Rebellion and everything else by throwing others under the cart, or meddling in other people's business until they paid us to go away, or by hiding. Any time some shiny young thing decided to join up, we'd all sort of look round at each other and do that kind of mouth shape that's not a grimace but it's not a smile either, and hope they found a nice quiet spot somewhere indoors, totting up turnips for the supply carts. Those were the sorts of people who wanted to help out of the goodness of their hearts, whereas the rest of us—the core backbone of the thing, the Inquisitor being the only exception—were helping because we knew it might be our only chance to do something right.

There were times when that something-rightness just didn't come through. Some days we'd go off to find some lost kid or an errant scout and found a corpse, instead; sometimes everything would be going swimmingly, and then politics would come crashing down on us and set us back by months. And sometimes the task of the day was to ride home in a soft spittle of rain and try not to wonder how saving a friend's life was going to come back to bite us later.

So much of what we did was Feelings. Comforting the bereaved, doing one last favor for the dying, having to make the choice between what would help someone feel better and what would help them _be_ better.

I don't like to mention him often, but Blondie used to talk to me a lot about what life was like in the Circle where he grew up, the sort of conversations where _I_ didn't bring it up, and _he_ hadn't seemed to bring it up either, but there we were talking about it anyway. He always seemed to sag a bit afterwards, in a mix of relief and disgust, like when a healer lances something that's been hurting you for ages.

Up until the time of the telling, I hadn't much concerned myself with The Plight of the Mage, because I hadn't _known_ all that many until certain people barreled into my life like battering rams and sent me reeling in new directions. I am, as we have observed time and again in this memoir, primarily a selfish person. If someone was having problems off behind a wall where I couldn't see or hear them, all the better. But then I got caught up in the middle of it, and it mattered. That's where the line is, for me, that's where I start caring: the second I'm in it, I have to see it through. So I'd listen to Blondie tell me about Kinloch Hold, what lessons were like, how some of the Templars had treated them there, even (briefly) what sort of person the Hero of Ferelden had been like as a kid. And as with any story I listened intently, and when it was polite to, I asked questions.

There's this idea that apostates have been studying in secret to become ravenous killing machines, isn't there? People wonder, well, if they didn't _want_ to go around murdering everyone then why are they so sodding good at it, eh? Stands to reason. But Blondie told me why: they get taught how. That's one of the cornerstones of a Circle mage's education, how to kill people. Because at any time some duke or bann or queen or whatever can just show up and say, all right, you lot, out on the battlefield, and if you don't give us the advantage then things will go very _unpleasantly_ for you here in your little tower, but if we win, oh, it'll be a _paradise_ of privileges.

Something else Blondie told me about that had never occurred to me before, which is what I'm getting around to with this narrative byroad, was the concept of emotional labor. People assume that feelings don't take any effort, but they do, and it takes even more work to hide them while presenting something you don't actually feel at the time. A friendly smile for the person you just heard talking shit about you behind your back, swearing loyalty to someone you knew would throw you to the wolves without a second thought, because you had to say those things and behave in those ways to keep yourself safe. The automatic, earnest _yes, ser!_ when your gut response was to flinch, or to object. Shouldering the problems of others because if you helped them enough, you were considered valuable, and then maybe they wouldn't forget to feed you, or maybe they'd forget to kill you.

And on the crossing from Kirkwall, on the calmer nights when we could hear each other over the sea noise, I'd heard much the same story from Curly. I'd asked leading questions about what things had been like at The Other Circle, and he'd told me, reluctantly, in little packets of information spread out over many conversations, halting, still raw.

_I'd joined the Order to protect people, to help them. My superiors at the Circle didn't seem to have the same intentions._

_You always had to seem eager about your task, even when it was folly. Especially then._

_It felt like insubordination, even just thinking that my devotion was truer to our calling than theirs, so I... tried to stop thinking about it._

The tone of his voice when he admitted to having failed his own ideals is one of those things that, when it bobs up out of my memory, still makes my throat feel weird and I want to find the bastard responsible for the look on Cullen's face and, if necessary, gather up that bastard's ashes from the four winds just so I can hit them.

I'm pretty good at lying, and I'm good at making people feel at ease, but I'd never realized it was _work_ until someone pointed it out. I'm selfish, yeah, but that doesn't mean I don't get Feelings when something bad happens. And more and more, lately, I'd been feeling the strain of just how much Feeling we all had to do these days. Perhaps that was the real reason—or one of the _many_ real reasons—I'd started writing to Curly as Arch in the first place. To create good feelings in the void left by everything we had to do, for a buoyant untruth and a smile to actually do some good.

* * *

Sparkler had been keeping us afloat for hours, doing color commentary on the surrounding countryside, picking good-natured arguments with Solas about magical technique, and he and I told bad jokes back and forth, trying to one-up each other to see who could get the biggest laugh. We rode through the evening and into the night, stopping only for a short sleep and to change the horses.

'Hey.'

I hadn't been able to get to sleep yet, either, despite the exhaustion of the day. 'Hey yourself.'

The Inquisitor sighed, turning over beside me in the dark. We'd elected to be crammed in with everybody's stuff in Tent Number One, so Dorian and Solas and the two officers who traveled with us were in Tent Number Two, keeping their elbows tucked in close to their bodies, lined up in a rigid row like tapers in a candelabrum. 'Do you think I've done the right thing?'

In my current state of mind I had plenty of opinions, starting with the conviction that it would've been a good idea to not have been born. But I said, 'You always do the right thing.'

'Oh, thanks, that helps.'

'Now, hang on. I don't mean you always know what the best course of action is in the moment.'

The Inquisitor made a muffled noise. 'Got that right.'

'I mean that because you really think things through, and follow up on everything as best you can, even kind of a dumb decision can turn out to be good.'

'Ah.' There was a long pause. 'Was this one dumb, then?'

'Saving Blackwall's life? No.' I punched my sack-pillow into a better shape. 'The inevitable political shitstorm is the dumb part.'

'I may have cost us a lot of allies. Is Josephine going to be angry at me, d'you think?'

'She doesn't really get _angry_ ,' I pointed out. 'She gets more efficient.'

'Right,' said the Inquisitor. 'That's not terrifying at all.'

We lay in silence, attempting to rest even as our thoughts kept us alert and fretful. No matter how much we'd tried to cheer each other up on the road, there was still that ache of wishing things were different, easier, _better_ by now. The desire to have _done so already_ , to not have to face the uphill climb presented by every task. But that was the work we'd agreed to do, so the good people didn't have to worry. All we could do was the job that was in front of us, and pray it would be enough.


	4. The Liar, The Date, and The Action Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I listened to his breath quicken, remembering how I'd sat with my back against my office door and bit my lip as I read that gorgeous letter, when I'd realized things had gone farther than anticipated and that I never wanted them to stop.

It was so early in the morning that 'late at night' hadn't gone home yet. Distantly, on the edge of the world, the sun was starting to do its stuff, delineating horizon from terrain, bleaching the heavens to make ready a clean place to lay down the blue of the day, but not here. Here, it was dark, stars blinking in tired confusion behind a few rags of cloud.

Some days had passed since our return from Val Royeaux. The Inquisitor had turned right back around almost immediately, with Chuckles and Iron Lady and Tiny in tow, to go to some spooky temple for a broken sword of dubious cursedness, saying it was better to keep busy at a time like this than to sit around dwelling on what-ifs. I'd spent some afternoons with the newsies, planning out the Day of Andraste in Repose edition, but the rest of my time I'd spent in the great hall, catching up on bills and correspondence, since my office was currently being monopolized by Milton and Arthur's cataloging.

But this was not a bills-doing time of day. It was the time of day where you got something unpleasant out of the way before the visiting nobles woke up to gawk at you while you were doing it. In fact, I was one of the only people to be audience to the judgment.

When Blackwall had been given leave to keep living, I followed Ruffles to her office. After she'd deposited her clipboard at the desk, we sat in the matching chairs in front of the fire and were quiet for a long time, staring into the flames.

'Did we do the right thing?' she asked, because of course she did.

'Against all evidence, you people seem to think I'm the authority on what the Right Thing is,' I said. 'Everybody keeps asking me.'

'Forgive me, Varric. You are so easy to talk to, and it's...' Ruffles sighed, 'I find it difficult to admit uncertainty to others.'

'I'm the doubt guy, I get it.' I gave her a little smile. 'Look, from where I'm sitting this feels like the only good way to have gone with this. If we went the "off with his head" route, people who've joined up to start a new life will wonder what could happen if they're Found Out, too. I'm not naming any names, but some of our agents used to be pretty awful people, and they decided to straighten up and use those powers for the greater good rather than just for personal gain. You know?'

Ruffles plucked at a loose stitch on the armrest of her chair. 'I suppose you're right. We must show our supporters that we are willing to forgive, as the Maker forgives.'

The Maker hadn't seemed very forgiving to me, for a while, but I didn't mention that. I might not have been our finest diplomat—I'd look terrible in that puffy shirt—but on a good day I knew when not to make cynical remarks. And this _was_ a good day, looking strictly at the facts: Blackwall got to live, and was staying on; nobody we personally cared about had died. But it didn't feel like a good day at all.

'I should get started on my correspondence,' said Ruffles, despite it obviously still being dark outside.

'You can't be serious.'

'I _am_ typically sorting out my in-tray at this hour.'

I shook my head, getting up. 'You're something else, you know that?' I stopped beside her before I turned to go. 'I may not know what the Right Thing is, Ruffles, but I know a good person when I see 'em. Keep up the good work.'

* * *

I managed to hunt down some coffee and a scone, and went to my office to see if I could navigate the few available inches of floor that weren't piled with books. I wasn't surprised to find Arthur and Milton in there, because they were Night People, but I hadn't expected Dorian to be with them.

'Do you know something, Varric?' he said, sitting in my chair with his ankles crossed on the corner of my desk, a book balanced in his lap.

'I know a lot of things,' I said. 'Like the fact that your ass is in my seat.'

'You weren't using it at the time,' he deflected. 'Regardless, I believe our enterprising young librarians have found it!'

I frowned a bit. 'Found what?'

'What the Grand Archivist has been dangling over us for a month and a half, the deceitful little minx. Come look at this.'

I picked my way across the room until I could see the book he was holding. 'What am I looking at, exactly?'

'This,' said Dorian, 'is the key! The answer I've been looking for! I _knew_ there would be something important in here.'

'Other than all the _other_ important books, of course,' I added, having caught the scandalized expressions on the young scholars' faces at that comment. 'So what's this, some kind of ancient Tevinter birth record or what?'

He turned to the frontispiece, keeping his place with a finger. I only recognized one of the words in the lengthy title, which seemed to be of the sort that sums up the entire plot for you so you know what you're in for, and appeared to have been burned rather than printed onto the page: _mendax_.

'Liar?' I said.

'Liar _priest_ ,' said Dorian, finger skimming along under a nearby word to point it out. 'Not in the sense of preaching of false gods, either. Do you remember the story of the Seven Hells?'

'Vividly.' The book made a softly sapient noise as he turned the pages. 'Eugh,' I said.

'Fine old-world craftsmanship, this is! I'm surprised you aren't more appreciative, seeing as you called bagsies on this entire library.'

'I'd prefer it if it didn't make a _noise_.'

'I'd prefer it if you would directly address the love of your life instead of dancing around the point like you're on hot coals whenever he looks at you, but sometimes, in this mortal realm, we don't get what we want.'

'Bit personal in front of the kids,' I huffed.

'It's _educational_.' Sparkler turned to Arthur and Milton, who had been pretending not to eavesdrop. 'You two will always be honest with each other, won't you, darlings? Don't end up like Uncle Varric, holed up in a cellar with blue balls.'

'Hey!'

Arthur, the spokesman, nodded and said, 'Of course, ser,' and they went back to studiously cross-checking their indexes without so much as a snicker at the word balls. Maybe there was hope for the newsies, after all, if it was possible for a fifteen-year-old boy to keep a straight face about something like that.

'Now that we've enriched a couple of young lives with my advice...' Dorian began to read, pausing only now and again to transliterate something for which there wasn't an exact equivalent in Trade. _'I, Sethius, second son of Caecilius of House Amladaris, promised as is tradition to the service of my father's god, did become through devoted study a High Priest of Dumat—'_

I held up a hand. 'Slow down, promised to the service of his father's god?'

Dorian nodded. 'Ghastly state of affairs, isn't it? Even in these enlightened modern times, the second son is typically sworn to the priesthood. Thank the Maker I'm an only child! Can you _imagine_ me in one of those little white pillbox hats that Chantry brothers wear?' He went back to the passage he'd been reading. _'Hereafter follows the account, in truth and without prevarication, of this one's service to the Dragon of Silence, concerning primarily the sojourn into the Golden City, and what befell us after.'_

Milton and Arthur were paying keen attention now, too. Dorian flipped to the page where he'd held his place.

_'And lo, the gods in their cruel wisdom had returned me to the mortal realm, burdened heavily by what I had seen. I endeavored to tell others of our trials, but I was rebuked. I sought the finest sacrifices, but the bodies that warmed the altar were as worthless as dust, and their blood pleased Him not—'_

'Easy, Sparkler, I don't think I can take any more horrible unveiling of personal failures that resulted in senseless deaths. We've reached the quota for the week.'

He shut the book. 'Another time, then. A bit further along he talks about his plans to tear open the sky, blah blah, become the god that would fix everything wrong with the world. Riveting stuff. Sound familiar at all?'

I sat back against the edge of the desk. 'Talk about incriminating. Why would you write this shit down?'

This got me a dirty look from Milton, who was of the opinion that _everything_ ought to be written down.

Dorian shrugged. 'You're an author, you tell me.'

'This can't be the actual diary of the Lying Priest, though,' I said. 'I mean, really?'

'Ah,' said Dorian, 'that doubt does nothing but carry on the curse, you see! I thought that, too, and then I realized, oh, hang on a moment, what if that's the point?'

'What if _what's_ the point?'

'No one's meant to believe it.' There was a bright flash of mischief in Sparkler's eyes. 'Hypothetically, if he was in fact cursed, he knew no one _would_ believe it! What better way to get something off your chest, than in a way that people assume is fiction? People would think it's a fable, but it's a _manifesto_.'

He had a point, there. 'All right, but why do you think this has any real connection to Corypheus? How could we ever confirm he's this Sethius guy?'

Dorian slid a piece of paper across to me.

_PRIEST / MOTIVE / GOD_

_Pride—praise and recognition—Urthemiel?_   
_Selfishness—make the gods serve him—Andoral_   
_Greed—wealth to rival kings—?_   
_Apathy—abandon everything—Zazikel? Razikale?_   
_Envy—all power for himself—Lusacan ??? ~~the final Archdemon~~ (but there's no way to have known that at the time argh!)_   
_Wrath—vengeance upon nonbelievers—Toth probably_   
_Dishonesty/Silence—unknown reasons—Dumat_

'Well, uh,' I handed it back. 'That makes about as much sense as anything else we had to go on, I guess.'

'It makes _more_ sense,' Sparkler pointed out, 'than some of the things I was taught about the Magisters Sidereal.'

'That sounds vaguely familiar.'

He waved a hand. 'Oh, you know, the big Seven, names and most useful information lost, all priests of the Old Gods, went off to do their little task and came back with the Taint, _oh no!_ And everything was fucked thereafter.' Dorian glanced over at Milton and Arthur and added, for my sake, 'Don't say "fuck".'

'What about the actual names and shit mentioned in here?'

'I asked Josephine to write to the current head of House Amladaris, and we got a snippy and suspiciously specific reply that nevertheless denied all knowledge of our very odd findings. Hmm, hmm! _Interesting_ , isn't it? And yes, I know, it could still be a fake. But if it is, it's a very ancient fake, bound in a manner that indicates there may only be one copy, or at _most_ a very small number, which gives it an entirely different kind of worth all its own. And if we were, for instance, to ever locate an additional copy, a whole _host_ of bizarre possibilities would unfold. Who would make such a thing, and why? To whom did they belong? One does not submit something for publication with the stipulation that it be bound in—'

'I don't want to know what it's bound in.'

'—a very peculiar fashion,' Dorian finished. 'So, either way, House Amladaris has its knickers in a twist about the fact that we know anything about it, much less _have_ the book. If it's a fake, they're embarrassed that somebody dug up that old gossip again. Ancient Amladaris patriarchs were probably fielding all _sorts_ of rumors, and the very fact that they didn't want people to read the thing would mean that more and more people _would_ , and word would get around. And that's if it's just libel! If it's real, then you're dealing with outing them to society as part of the reason we have Blights in the first place. "Social suicide" doesn't even begin to cover it.'

'You had Ruffles write to them? When did this happen, exactly?'

'Oh, I only just saw the reply last night. Milton brought the book to my attention a couple of weeks back.'

I gave him a look. 'And you didn't mention it?'

'We didn't want to give anyone false hope.' He got up and handed off the book to Arthur, who put it in the appropriate stack and refreshed the barrier. I followed Dorian out into the empty press room, where he cast an eye over Dollface's and Niblet's sketches for the new edition, which had been hung up on the line yesterday for the ink to dry. 'So, Varric! Ready for this afternoon?'

'That depends on what's happening this afternoon.'

Dorian swung round. 'You can't be serious! Your _date.'_

'I _—_ oh. Right.' You know how sometimes you're anticipating something so much that it becomes a sort of scenery emotion, the backdrop to everything else, so that even though you're excited about it, you can also completely forget what day it's supposed to be? No? Well, I do that, and it's irritating.

'What's all this?' Sparkler was pointing at the list on the canvas. 'Planning another romance serial, are we?'

'Nah, that's the kids' ideas for how to woo someone.' Almost precisely along the lines of what the Inquisitor had recommended I do, in fact. 'They were surprisingly thorough.'

He stood there stroking his mustache for a moment, then said, 'Well done. Where shall we start?'

* * *

Sparkler set out the pens, made sure the inkstand was within reach, and did all sorts of little fussy hovering adjustments to make sure we were ready to write.

'All right, gents, round two's just a smidge different, as I'm not going to be present.'

Cullen raised a brow. 'I thought you said mediation was an important part of the process?'

'It is, but I think you showed such great progress and initiative in your first session, don't you?'

'He's got his own date,' I told Curly in an undertone.

'Really?'

'Sure does. I only found out on the way up.'

'Well! Congratulations, Dorian.'

Sparkler looked mildly affronted. 'You say that like getting someone to notice me is something I've toiled over for ages.'

'No, no, of course not.'

'Like I don't have loads of eligible chaps throwing themselves at me any time I step out the door,' Dorian went on.

'Of course you have.'

'I'm drowning in handsome suitors.'

'I don't know about drowning,' I said. 'Paddling, at least.'

Dorian made a so-so gesture with his hand. 'Perhaps a suggestion of paddling, now and then.'

'When the mood... strikes you,' said Cullen. I hid a smirk behind my hand.

'Yes, well, I'm off.' Dorian looked over his shoulder as he ducked out the door. 'For Andraste's sake, don't talk shop. And feel free to be a little... freer, this time, won't you? One can get away with practically _anything_ unchaperoned.'

The door snicked closed.

We looked at each other. Curly looked away first, wrote his line quickly, and turned the paper around for me to see.

_It's a relief to spend some time with you again. Our last conversation was somewhat... something, wasn't it?_

_Definitely something,_ I wrote back. _But we're not supposed to talk shop._

_I meant the other parts of it._

_Ah._

I paused, trying to think of where to go next. I knew where I wanted to go, but it didn't seem the time, yet. But when would it be the right time? I could wait for the right moment forever and always convince myself that it hadn't happened yet.

_Had any good naps lately?_

Cullen laughed as he read that, and muffled it quickly, as if he were in a sanctuary and might be shushed. Without Sparkler there, it seemed much quieter than our first session had been, even though all the sounds then had been the usual Skyhold noise from down in the courtyard, and Dorian turning pages as he read across the room. Now, though, every sound seemed both dampened and amplified, intimate and obtrusive. Didn't make sense that it could be both, but it was.

He was still smiling as he wrote, _I had no idea you could be so direct._

_That's not direct, that's euphemistic._

_Even so._

_Sooo?_

I bounced my eyebrows when he looked up at me as he read that, and I could see the tips of his ears turn a little pink.

_Yes. Shall I tell you?_

_I had no idea you could be so direct!_

He shook his head with a curling smirk, gaze flicking up at me briefly before he replied, taking his time as a poem unfolded.

 _The only thing I hear_  
_over the white fizz that fills every corner of my mind_  
_and blots out fear_  
_is the murmur of your voice,_  
_quiet, encouraging voice,_  
_its breathless rasp like a fingernail scratch_  
_drawn down my spine to drag out_  
_shiver upon shiver from me_

 _I lay between your thighs,_  
_sounds a burr in my chest that are not quite words_  
_but tell you the truth of what I desire—_  
_the press of my lips against salt-slick warmth,_  
_the delicate ridge of a vein,_  
_heat sliding through every part of me in_  
_anticipation_

 _My pulse mirrored in yours,_  
_quickened and eager for touch_  
_the thud of our hearts in counter-time_  
_join at the back of my throat_

 _What are you saying?_  
_Your phantom sighs_  
_made up of ink and wishing,_  
_what are you telling me?_  
_That I please you, that I am yours,_  
_that all is well, forgiven,_  
_though you know not for what deeds_  
_I would seek your forgiveness_

 _I kneel at your feet, bending to your will_  
_and beneath your hand,_  
_pressing upward into your touch as you tell me_  
_what a sight I am,_  
_what temptation,_  
_what bliss._

He stared down at his hands, and if he was looking at me to gauge my reaction as I read, I didn't catch him at it.

I dipped my pen and sat thinking for a long moment, remembering the list I'd written out on the big canvas down in the press room. Be direct, damn it! If Curly could manage it, then so could I. I dipped my pen again, unnecessarily, and wrote.

 _You can't not know, not here, not now—_  
_This quiet space, so close at hand_  
_Turns every soft intake of breath_  
_Into admission. Can you see_  
_The speeding pulse flash in my throat,_  
_The faintest tremor of my hands,_  
_My bitten lips, the flush of blood_  
_That darkens my once-sunburnt face?_  
_You can't not feel the thread drawn taut_  
_Between us, singing fit to snap;_  
_If you cannot, then nor can I_  
_Ignore the heady urge to act._  
_What bliss, indeed! The sight of you_  
_So close at hand, so silent still,_  
_Your every glance, your every breath_  
_A spur to speed on my desire._

I watched as he read, listened to the little hitch when he breathed out. He closed his eyes for a long moment when he'd reached the end, as if steadying himself, and I wanted nothing more in that moment than to climb across the desk and kiss him, but I didn't. I waited.

 _Why do I still fear what I want?_  
_I know you would not deny me, not now,_  
_Though I was fool enough to deny you._  
_How long can we wind out this game,_  
_This hesitant dance? I don't fault you,_  
_I don't fault us; I adore it!_  
_The waiting, the eager press of words_  
_Against words_  
_Is somehow sweeter than any memory_  
_Of body against body._  
_What once was vain hope and aching need_  
_That my far-off beloved would appear_  
_Is now the knowledge that he sits within arm's reach_  
_But dares not touch._  
_Why do I still fear what I want?_  
_You torment me! I adore it._  
_I never knew how sweet impatience_  
_Could become;_  
_I never knew how warm the flames_  
_Stoked of desire's self-denial._  
_Pull taut, tighter, I long for it now!_  
_Tug at my heart until the thread must surely break,_  
_Because the release will be all the sweeter_  
_From the tension endured,_  
_Your touch all the more perfect_  
_For my forbearance._

Damn it, how could he go from raunchy to romantic with barely a blink in-between? It's like he'd been practicing, and I realized that maybe he had.

_Well, you've got me now. I can't back down from a challenge like that._

I slid the paper back.

_I hardly think it's that challenging for you._

_You're right, I'm pretty good at the whole denial angle._

_Not quite what I meant._

_Yeah, I know._

Cullen looked at me, glancing back and forth between my eyes and my last poem. _A part of you doesn't deny himself anything. You have to understand how a person behaves in order to create them, don't you? What would Archie say to me?_

I was gripping my pen a little too hard, and blotted the ink. _I'm not him, Curly._

_But he's you._

What _would_ Arch tell him? What would I say (wryly, teasingly, and yes maybe with some of that self-deprecation that always comes around to patting myself on the back) if I knew nothing bad would happen—or that if something bad _did_ happen, I could escape unscathed and pretend it hadn't?

 _It would be flattering, I know,_  
_If I were to embellish it,_  
_If I conveyed undying love_  
_And pined, adored, and relished it;_

 _It would be lofty praise, indeed,_  
_If I were to confess such passion_  
_As might befit some dreamy sap_  
_Whose fervor burns in feverish fashion;_

 _Yes, I concur, it would be swell,_  
_It would be really, truly grand_  
_If stars collided and I **knew  
** The moment that you touched my hand;_

 _I'd love to say to all and sundry_  
_How just a glance can set me sighing,_  
_How ravishing your sultry smile—_  
_But then again, you'd think I'm lying._

 _Look, I can do clichés and symbols,_  
_And I can write diverting verse,_  
_But all is vanity! I'd rather_  
_Fuck you 'til it makes you curse._

His expression was hard to decipher, and Cullen read over the poem a few times, with the occasional little smile, before he dipped his pen and replied, blushing so much he practically glowed:

_Please._

Well, shit, what was I supposed to do with that?

Don't get me wrong, reader, at this point in my career I wasn't what you might call inexperienced in the amorous arts. Granted, I wasn't some wizened Antivan common-house mother who'd seen everything the mortal mind could think to do with various combinations of orifices and bespoke leather goods, but I'd been around the block. Several blocks, of varying... geography... look, the _point_ is, I wasn't coming at this green as glass and not knowing where to begin. I could think of a thousand ways to begin, and often had. Beginnings are some of the most fun sequences to write. It's the getting-down-to-it that trips me up.

And to be perfectly honest, in my most successful endeavors I wasn't the one putting the notch on the bedpost, if you catch my meaning. I've fallen into trysts with all sorts of people over the years, but it was mostly to do with them saying, 'Oh, come to _bed_ , you idiot,' rather than me working my seductive powers on them. I don't even know if I _have_ seductive powers, unless you count the ability to write sex scenes that the Randy Dowager rates, on average, with five out of five scarves that are on fire.

I like pleasing people. I like being told that whatever I'm doing fits the bill—whether that's communicated via scarves or more conventional methods. That doesn't mean I take to any particular role more easily than another, mind you, because you can please people no matter _what_ you're doing, as long as you're paying attention to somebody's feedback on the subject. But I won't say I wasn't surprised by the trend in Curly's more explicit verses toward... well, I suppose you could call it _supplication_ , rather than superiority. I mean, I hadn't assumed Curly would be one for bossing somebody around in the bedroom, but then again, I hadn't gone into this assuming much of anything in that regard, other than that it probably wouldn't come up.

Obviously, things were coming up _now_.

Curly did seem to like the idea, otherwise he wouldn't have said please. If nothing else, I can take something and run with it, so I did.

 _O! to hear you softly keening,_  
_Pliant form beneath my hand,_  
_Hesitant against me, leaning_  
_Lest you find it hard to stand,_  
_Pupils dark and skin a-fever,_  
_Heart a-gallop without cease,_  
_In the arms of your deceiver_  
_Find your pleasure and release._

 _Please! such understated yearning,_  
_When so long desire has grown;_  
_All the while I have been burning,_  
_Burning to make you my own._  
_Please! a word so sweetly simple_  
_Sends a shiver down my spine!_  
_Every freckle, every dimple,_  
_Every inch of you is mine._

I listened to his breath quicken, remembering how I'd sat with my back against my office door and bit my lip as I read that gorgeous letter, when I'd realized things had gone farther than anticipated and that I never wanted them to stop.

But things had been different, then. I'd been aimless, teasing, toying with the idea without ever taking it to heart. But now my heart was so full of him it almost hurt.

 _Please,_ he wrote again, and I had to rein in a little noise of longing before it could get out, but it was impossible not to hear the sound of my tamping it down, regardless.

I had to do this properly, or not at all. No more masks, no games unless we both agreed upon it first. I wasn't Arch Tarstrive, and Curly existed outside of being written down. I was myself, and Cullen was Cullen, and we wanted each other for _some_ damned reason, and I was determined to make it work.

And I wasn't going to run away anymore.

I took up my pen and I wrote,

_I want you, too._


	5. The Tea, The Gifts, and The Description

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Lots of people regret not telling someone they love them,' said Cole. 'Dying, wishing it had been different, dreaming of what they didn't dare do.'  
> I took my hair down so I could dry it properly. 'Let's keep our fingers crossed that neither of us are going to die before we get up the guts to say it, then.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cole's question to solas is about the protagonist of _oh who is that young sinner_ by a.e. housman, which makes me cry gay tears
> 
> an additional tag for this chapter: Dorian Pavus is a Big Ol' Top

_'...and?'_

I took a long drink. 'And then we cleaned our nibs.'

Dorian gawped at me, then shut his mouth. 'That had _better_ be a euphemism, you bastard. Don't leave me in suspense!'

'It's really not,' I said. Night had drawn in around the mountains, and Sparkler and I were trading stories about our respective dates. He wouldn't tell me with whom he'd had his date, so I was being a little stingy with the details to get back at him. 'We figured that was a good place to stop for the day, considering.'

'Considering what, pray tell?'

'Considering the fact that it has a nice narrative symmetry to the last time,' I pointed out, 'and also I'm supposed to be Wooing Him Properly, remember? By order of the Right Honorable Quizness.'

'Ah,' said Dorian, 'you have me there. So you'd say you've pretty much covered Be Direct, then?'

'As direct as I can be without circling affected areas on an anatomical diagram, yes.'

'What should come next? Use your best judgment.'

Out of everyone I knew, Sparkler had had the most to say about what he _thought_ of my best judgment, but I let it go. '"And sweet" was the next part, not that this stuff is in any particular order.'

'Right.' He topped off my glass before his own, which was a subtle indicator that he wasn't fed up with me today. 'What can you do for him that displays an otherwise-unplumbed sweetness in your prickly, splenetic nature?'

'Hey! I'm not prickly.'

'Only because you've left all your spines stuck into several other fellows.'

I waggled an eyebrow at him. 'I have, huh?'

'Oh, stop.'

We pondered on our theme for a couple of minutes.

'I've got all this... stuff,' I said, 'that I don't know what to do with. Fancy shit I like the idea of but that I don't actually use.'

'Such as?'

I reminded him of the contents of the will, and he made a few suggestions, and that's how I ended up knocking on Cullen's office door the following afternoon. More kicking than knocking, really.

'Enter,' said Cullen from inside.

'Kinda got my hands full,' I replied.

He got up and opened the door, and surveyed what I was holding with surprise. 'What's this about?'

I went past him into the office and put the tray down on the desk, setting out one of the bone teacups on a saucer, silver rims catching the light. 'How do you take your tea, again?'

'Black, one sugar. What possessed you to bring me tea?'

I shrugged, selecting a lump of sugar from its little dish. Does everybody feel like they have the biggest hands in the world when they use those tiny sugar tongs? 'I was in the kitchen getting my own and I happened to ask if anybody had been up with yours, yet. Figured I'd spare somebody the trip, and anyway, I wanted to see you.'

'I—I see,' he said, trying to hide how pleased he was by it, busying himself with some papers as he sat back down. 'And why this sudden urge to see me? You spent an hour cloistered away in here yesterday, after all.'

'I know.' I smirked. 'All the more reason to come running back, right?' I nudged the cup and saucer in his direction. 'That sweet enough for you, Commander?'

He took a sip. 'Perfect, actually.' He did an odd little expression that was a cross between a frown and a smile. 'Where did you get this?'

'Oh, the tea set? Came on the carts with the presses.'

'No, the tea.'

'I think we picked it up in Redcliffe,' I said, leaving out the fact that while we'd been in the shop, the Kid had sniffed it and let off some insightful stuff about Curly missing his family but feeling like he ought to distance himself from them for their own safety, and I'd bought it on the hope that I'd figure out how to pass it along later.

'This is the sort my sister used to make,' said Curly, with fondness. 'I haven't had it in years. Does it still have the little yellow flower bits in?' He lifted the lid of the teapot to look, and saw the tiny dried petals floating there.

'Huh,' I said. 'You know, somebody might think I found out you liked it and got it especially for you.'

'They might, indeed,' he said. 'Would they be right?'

'Tsk, that would imply that I wanted to make you smile or something,' I said, waving it away. 'Who's got that kind of time?'

Curly nodded. 'Not you, certainly.'

'Won't find me carrying a tray up here just to brighten your day, that's for sure.'

'Absolutely not.'

'I've got so much else I could be doing.'

'Of course.'

'Like wrapping little presents for you to open while I'm off in that hyena-infested oasis doing Maker-knows-what.'

'Presents?' he said, feigning innocent curiosity.

'Ah, shit, did I say that out loud?' I was grinning, by that point. 'Nope, no presents for you, Curly. No gifts of any description.'

'I'll make note of that. Or I won't, rather, as there won't be any.'

'If any do show up, give them a sharp talking-to.'

'Nothing else for it.'

'Right,' I said. 'Enjoy your tea, I'm off to do... something.'

'I'm certain you're very busy.'

'You wouldn't believe it if I told you.'

'Well, off you go, then.'

'Off, as you say, I go.'

I heard him laugh a little under his breath as I shut the door.

* * *

_Cullen,_

_Open the first parcel when you receive this letter, then read on._

_Right now I'm much too far away_  
_To stroke your curls back where they lay,_  
_So here's a comb. Give it a whirl_  
_And think of me with every curl._

_Affectionately yours,_

_Varric_

* * *

**Traveling...**

**Traveling...**

**Traveling...**

* * *

Cole: It wasn't the color of his hair, really, was it?

Solas: A metaphor for something over which he had no power, however much he might be told to change it.

Cole: Why do you need a metaphor for that?

Solas: People often find it difficult to accept the full extent of what man cannot control.

* * *

Vivienne: Varric, darling, I must say I'm looking forward to the new edition of The Herald.

Me: I'm glad you approve! I gotta say, though, it seems a little low-brow for you.

Vivienne: Oh, it _is_. Such a refreshing change from the scathing political satire to which I've grown accustomed.

Me: The Herald—Your local source for literary "slumming it"!

Vivienne: Trust me, my dear, I'm not the only courtier who eagerly awaits the next issue. You've no idea how stale things can be when _everyone_ one knows tells the same three jokes.

* * *

Solas: Did you ever determine the corresponding gods to the sinful priests in your _Liber Mendax?_

Dorian: Not quite yet. The Chant of Light has been edited and tidied-up so many times, it could have been based on a redacted canticle, for all we know!

Solas: It must be frustrating, to not know what the truth is.

Dorian: Honestly, this feels like its source is in oral tradition, because there's some contradictory elements, too much overlap—you know, what's the difference between a selfish person and a greedy person? That varies depending on who's describing them. You know, I wonder if the original form of the legend came about back when there was an eighth god? Or when we _think_ there was an eighth god, anyway.

Solas: Legends are ripe for distortion. Time and retelling can skew hindrance into help, or turn savior to villain.

Dorian: Is that what happened with the elven gods?

Solas: [huffs]

Dorian: Ah, message received. "Don't talk to the dirty Vint about Important Elf Stuff."

Sera: I don't want him to talk to _me_ about Elf Stuff, either.

Dorian: We shall form a secret club, and Solas is not invited!

Sera: [blows a raspberry]

* * *

Blackwall: Would you stop looking at me like that?

Vivienne: I'm entitled to look at you in whatever manner comes naturally to me.

Blackwall: You got the first two words right, at any rate.

* * *

Iron Bull: Hey, Cole.

Cole: Hello!

Iron Bull: If I asked you somebody's favorite color, would you be able to tell me?

Cole: He likes red better than white.

Iron Bull: That's not _quite_ what I wanted to know.

Cole: I don't know if wine _comes_ in other colors.

* * *

Solas: How are you finding the desert, Varric? You're complaining far less than you were on our last outing in this region.

Me: I'm coping.

Solas: You keep smiling to yourself and writing in your little book.

Me: All part of the coping, Chuckles.

* * *

Cassandra: I'm surprised the Inquisitor granted you pardon, Blackwall.

Blackwall: You're not the only one.

Cassandra: [tuts irritably] I suppose that despite our differences, we at least have _that_ in common.

* * *

Solas: Miss Sweetwater has been telling me about the creative process of publishing The Herald.

Me: I'm shocked! She should know better than to hand out spoilers.

Solas: It was more to do with how she and her fellow students are helping you acquire "special biscuits." I assumed this was some sort of obscure printer's lingo.

Me: Might be. Or it might be dangerous contraband. You can never tell with these kids.

* * *

Cassandra: I saw you the other day in the courtyard, Dorian.

Dorian: Did you? And here I thought I'd escaped anyone's notice!

Cassandra: You were making an exhibition of yourself.

Dorian: Making an exhibition of oneself is what brilliant artists _do._

Cassandra: Do brilliant artists also fall into fence posts with rope tangled around their ankles?

Dorian: It's what is called an _interpretive_ form of self-expression.

Cassandra: I interpret it as clumsiness.

Dorian: Typical! Everyone's a critic.

* * *

_Cullen,_

_Open the second package, preferably up your ladder where no one's going to walk in unannounced._

_This ring is too big for your finger,_  
_But should fit you quite nicely elsewhere._  
_Since you're so fond of anticipation,_  
_Well, it seemed only decent to share._

_Wickedly imagining the look on your face as you figure it out,_

_Varric_

* * *

I floated on my back in the cool water, listening to the muffled honking of tuskets at the other end of the oasis. Night, here, was only slightly darker than daytime, the stars crisply bright and almost offensively twinkly up above. The nearer moon was huge, and the hum of insects and shriek of fennecs was dampened a bit by the security barriers the mages had set up around camp for the evening. After getting lost in damned corkscrewing mine passages all day, it was nice to just lay around for a while.

A few people had gone to bed, while others were sitting around the fire in pajamas with the sleeves rolled up, washing their clothes in a tin bath. Sparkler was under the waterfall somewhere, scrubbing out the grime of the day and singing loudly to himself over the pounding water noise; Tiny was off in the dunes, replenishing his personal stores of witherstalk and probably having some Qun-y feelings while staring into the sandy nothingness of the desert; the Inquisitor was bent over one of the tables on the little rise, trying to draw a map of the mining tunnels (several attempts had already been thrown into the fire). Chuckles was sitting up on a rock, alone, staring pensively across the water to the just-visible outline of the temple door, sketching it on a pad of paper without looking down.

'Varric?'

Cole was sitting cobbler-style in the shallow water nearby, fully dressed and occasionally picking apart a lotus so he could push the petals around on the surface. He hadn't really got the hang of clothes being removable, yet, which was probably for the best—even in the bright desert evening, Kid was so pale he'd stand out like a signal flare. Moths would obliterate themselves against the barriers trying to get to him, and we'd have to wade through a crust of them in the morning to get out.

'What's on your mind, Kid?'

He stirred the floating petals and leaves around with a twig, making them spin. 'What's being in love feel like?'

'I'm pretty sure it's a little different for everybody.' I kicked off gently from a rock, scooting through the water. 'Don't you feel all that stuff when you look at people's minds?'

'I _see_ it,' he said. 'Seeing, not touching, texture from guessing. Smelling isn't the same as tasting.'

As a writer, I sort of knew how that felt. 'Well,' I said, 'it's like...' I paused, trying to figure it out for myself. 'Someone makes you happy, and you want to do the same for them. And more than that, you want them to be happy _because_ of you.'

'I already do that,' Cole pointed out. 'Helping makes me happy, and it makes other people happy. That's because I helped.'

'Hmm.' I paddled my hand in the water a bit to stop myself turning in a circle. 'It's sort of different, though. The very idea of someone is what makes you feel good, and you want it to go both ways.'

'Do you think I'll ever fall in love?' He was looking up at the moon, all chin and hat, the rest of his features obscured at that angle. 'I'm a person now. That's something people do.'

'Y'know, Kid, you just might.' I sat up in the water and grabbed the towel I'd left on a rock. 'But you can't get up one day and say, "I'm going to fall in love!", it kind of just happens to you.'

'A lot of things happen to me now,' he said. 'Some of them aren't very nice.'

'That's life. If it were any different, we'd take it for granted.'

He looked up at the sky in silence for a while, then said, 'Have you told him?'

'Told who what?' I said, but I knew what he meant.

'Cullen. If you don't tell him you love him, he may not _know_.' Cole looked back down, then, his pupils taking an unnaturally long time to adjust to the change in the level of light. Just one of those little reminders that he never did things automatically, that for him having a body was like having a job: various tasks had to be completed throughout the day, but sometimes you ran a little late, or did things out of order, like not breathing for a few hours until you really creeped somebody out. 'Lots of people regret not telling someone they love them,' he said. 'Dying, wishing it had been different, dreaming of what they didn't dare do.'

I took my hair down so I could dry it properly. 'Let's keep our fingers crossed that neither of us are going to die before we get up the guts to say it, then.'

He cocked his head and looked at me sideways, pupils finally snapping back to the appropriate low-light size. 'You should keep your hair like that,' he said.

'Hmm?'

'He wonders, ever since you-not-you mentioned it to him.'

Contrary to well-meaning advice, I put my hair back up. 'Maybe I'll surprise him with it sometime.'

Conversation lagged while I got into fresh clothes and went to hang my towel off the line strung between the tent poles. When I doubled back, Cole was floating around like I had been, hat over his face.

' _Can_ I help?' he said into the dome of his hat. 'I'd like to help, if you'd like that.'

'The tea was a nice touch.'

'Oh! Did he enjoy it?'

'It made him smile.' Cole was drifting a little, and I tugged on his foot to pull him back.

'That's good.' As always, he said it as such a firm statement of fact that I kind of felt proud of it, myself. Like, yeah, that _was_ a good thing to do. Well done, us!

'Varric?'

'Yeah?'

'How long am I supposed to keep my fingers crossed? I don't think I could hold a dagger very well like this.'

'Figure of speech,' I said, laughing. 'You can uncross them, it's fine.'

He pulled his hat to one side to look at me. 'But I don't want either of you to die before you tell each other.'

The night noises seemed to go dull in that moment, the yawning void of anxiety about the future blocking out sound and light.

'Same here, Kid. Same here.'

* * *

_Cullen,_

_Gift number three! Again, don't open this where any wholesome recruits (or terrible gossips) might catch a peek._

_Warm the copper and oil;_  
_Try not to feel daunted._  
_(You know, you could stick this_  
_Wherever you wanted.)_

_You're blushing, aren't you? I **know** you are, I can practically feel it from miles away._

_Looking forward to your poetic descriptions of this,_

_Your Varric_

* * *

_~~I cannot **believe** you sometimes.~~ _

_~~Thank you for the~~ _

_~~How am I supposed to descr~~ _

_candle blown out, eyes shut tight against shadow_  
_straddling pillows, fists curled in the sheets_  
_lit by a lash of the moon from the window_  
_tight apprehension and glorious heat_

_what would you say if you witnessed my sighing,_  
_what would you do if I begged for release?_  
_coil upon coil of tension complying,_  
_you take me apart piece by trembling piece_

_can't catch my breath and my vision is reeling_  
_caught in sensation's encircling embrace_  
_thoughts of you, only you, spur on the feeling_  
_as I imagine the smirk on your face_

_blush like a fever, suffusing and cloaking_  
_every inch, is beginning to bloom_  
_words ever fail me, inking unspoken_  
_sounds of assent in the dark of my room_

_knowing you asked me to, knowing I'm needed,_  
_knowing you wanted this, knowing it's fine,_  
_knowing you'd ease the suspense if I pleaded_  
_intoxicates me more than all the world's wine_

_breath shallow, lips bitten, hips rocking so sweetly,_  
_unwinding the ache that has lingered for days_  
_the most delicate touch will undo me completely_  
_mouth shaping entreaties and curses and praise_

_I want you! I want you more every moment,_  
_I want you beside me when you are away,_  
_I drag out such fierce and such beautiful torment—_  
_I want you inside me more than I can say_

_eagerly teasing and anticipating_  
_I whisper your name and I wish you could hear_  
_turn and return to me, know I am waiting_  
_for that blessed moment when you will appear_

_beloved, if only the hand that now holds_  
_and coaxes me closer were yours, not my own!_  
_I long for your touch, hunger barely controlled,_  
_this desire far sharper than I've ever known_

_but at last I allow it, exhaling, elated,_  
_back arching, legs shaking, ungracefully spent,_  
_lax-limbed I luxuriate, perfectly sated,_  
_awaiting your company, patient, content._

_(Descriptive enough?)_

_Your Cullen_

* * *

What follows is another exchange I didn't witness. I was told about it the day after—as Sparkler and I lagged behind the group because we were on the way to a cave full of spiders and weren't excited about it—because when this conversation took place the only part of it I was aware of was muffled, and I was _distracted_ , during the part of the night generally referred to as Second Watch.

Bull: Can't sleep?

Dorian: [sitting down by the fire] I suppose I could, but I'm not going to try at the moment.

Bull: Any particular reason?

Dorian: Varric's had a letter from his _beau_.

Bull: His beau.

Dorian: Commander Handsome.

Bull: I see.

Dorian: So does everyone else but Cullen, bless him.

Bull: Saucy letter, was it?

Dorian: Among the sauciest. You know how Varric sometimes makes a little noise in the back of his throat when he opens his mail? Imagine that, but an attempt for it not to be a _big_ noise, and he went off to sit by himself, facing away from everyone. You know how I mean. It seemed only fair to let him have the tent to himself for a bit.

Bull: Well, fuck me sideways. I had no idea Cullen had it in him.

Dorian: I reckon he hasn't had anything in him _yet,_ much less sideways. But Maker, I'm trying.

Bull: _You're_ trying?

Dorian: I'm _helping_.

Bull: Riiight.

Dorian: What, I'm incapable of helpfulness, am I?

Bull: [suppressing a laugh] No, no, of course not.

Dorian: I'm the epitome of helpfulness.

Bull: I'm sure you are.

Dorian: I've been giving Cullen lessons.

[A lengthy pause.]

Bull: _Lessons_.

Dorian: Yes, why does everyone get that _look_ on their face?

Bull: It kind of implies that a grown-ass man doesn't know how to give somebody a friendly jiggle.

Dorian: It's not as crass as all that!

Bull: Uh huh.

Dorian: Shut up!

Bull: Is it that he needs practice jiggling the same equipment, or...?

Dorian: Nothing has jiggled between us whatsoever!

Bull: I think you protest too much.

Dorian: Oh, shut it, you horrible brute. Here I am, acting out of the goodness of my heart and giving Varric some much-needed Alone Time and you have the _gall_ to imply that I've been canoodling his swain on the sly!

Bull: You'd jump at the chance for a good canoodle, though.

Dorian: The very nerve of you to even _suggest_ it! Cullen's thoroughly besotted with him, anyway, Maker knows why.

Bull: I do notice this shit.

Dorian: Oh dear, you too?

Bull: What? I got an eye.

Dorian: Hmm, doesn't have the same ring to it as "I've got eyes", I'm afraid.

Bull: "Mace to the face" is pretty catchy, though. At least _I_ caught it, heh.

Dorian: Nice. [A pause.] They won't bloody _get down to it,_ Bull. I'm in constant agony.

Bull: Why? They're the ones dragging it on forever.

Dorian: _I know!_ I should just leave them to it!

Bull: So why don't you?

Dorian: Because there's something called "living vicariously through one's friends" that I'm rather good at. It would be a shame to waste the opportunity. Hand me that, would you?

[A flask of Punishment is exchanged.]

Bull: What sort of stuff is in these lessons, anyway? Maybe if you explained it to someone they wouldn't look at you funny.

Dorian: Explaining It To Someone tends to be the extent of it.

Bull: He's been around long enough to see a few bedroom ceilings, Dorian. What makes you think he needs your help with that?

Dorian: Because he asked in a _very_ pretty, bashful way and it was... difficult to turn him down.

Bull: Sounds like he could just use that technique on Varric and seal the deal.

Dorian: But he _won't_. I've walked him through just about everything he could say to initiate things, but he hasn't. He's hopeless. Or rather, he's all hope and no hop.

Bull: Hop?

Dorian: He could climb onto Varric like a familiar armchair by now, but he won't, blast him.

Bull: So he's shy.

Dorian: I _know_ he's shy! It's the bane of my existence! You'd _think_ that someone with that kind of stentorian battlefield shout wouldn't wilt like a night-blooming flower at the sight of his beloved, but you would be wrong, because that's _exactly_ what he does. And Varric hasn't made it any easier, despite all the advice I've been giving _him_.

Bull: Why's that?

Dorian: Oh, you know. "Ringing the bell and running away" sort of nonsense. He knows how to get someone thoroughly fired up, I'll give him that, but he lacks the panache to follow through.

Bull: I think he just uses it on things that don't matter to him so much.

Dorian: I wish I could lend him some of mine, then. I'm _terrific_ at throwing myself into beds.

Bull: Maybe we should just lock them in a room together until they sort it out.

Dorian: Believe me, I have.

Bull: [laughing in surprised disbelief] No!

Dorian: Yes!

Bull: And no dice?

Dorian: Not even an inkling!

Bull: I can't believe it. [They exchange the flask once more.] I mean, we've all seen the way they look at each other when the other's not looking.

Dorian: Ah, that's the trick, isn't it? They've got to start looking at the same time. I've endured _months_ of this, you've no idea how devoted I am to seeing this through.

Bull: How the fuck have they been maintaining this?

Dorian: Through the post, damn them! I've got them to sit down together and write across the same desk, though. That was a significant leap.

Bull: Wow.

Dorian: I know.

Bull: It's kind of cute.

Dorian: It's not cute, it's infuriating!

Bull: In a sweet way.

Dorian: [huffs bitterly] At least they've got the long, slow, sensual tease down to a fine art.

Bull: You know, I've given a few people lessons, myself.

Dorian: Is this going to be one of those jokey tavern stories, or another attempt to flirt with me?

Bull: Just saying, I know where you're coming from. Shit, I know where _they're_ coming from. You want to impress somebody but you fuck it up sometimes, and then you have to just sit back and wait for it to work out or explode in your face.

Dorian: [after a sigh] It wasn't as bad a date as you think.

Bull: Sometimes I misread signals.

Dorian: Only you didn't.

Bull: No?

Dorian: Same signals, different end of the stick. Er, so to speak.

Bull: Oh!

Dorian: Don't look so surprised.

Bull: I'm not surprised, I'm relieved.

[A beat.]

Dorian: You are?

Bull: I mean, it's a nice change.

Dorian: People just _assume_ that I'm the one who always—

Bull: Yeah, I know all about assumptions like that.

Dorian: [wryly, under his breath] In the other direction, of course.

Bull: I'd hoped.

Dorian: Had you?

Bull: Yeah.

[A substantially longer pause.]

Dorian: Come to bed, you idiot.

Bull: It's still my watch.

Dorian: Hmm, you have a point. All sorts of terrifying beasts out there in the dark.

Bull: Yep.

Dorian: Huge fangs, slavering maws. Bristly coats that stand up when they growl at you.

Bull: And that's just the spiders!

Dorian: At least come sit by me, then.

Bull: [budging over] I'll protect you.

Dorian: Not if I protect you _first_.


	6. The Admission, The Chair, and The Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Look, yes, the point is to be honest, but be honest _the first time._ Straightforwardly. None of these superfluous crinkly bits, you're not a filigree bookplate. Remember our little phrase? Go on.'  
>  It was my turn to roll my eyes. 'There Is No Subtext.'  
> Dorian clenched a victorious fist. 'Yes! He _can_ be taught!'

It looked weird. It looked like the sort of thing you'd find at the back of some alchemist's cupboard, covered in grimy cobwebs and mysterious runes smeared with foreign and/or bodily substances, only it wasn't. In point of fact, it was a big wax cylinder made of melted-down Number 1 white candles. Milton and Arthur had practiced with the cheaper Number 3 yellows, first, to determine the appropriate size for the final product, Sparky and Snowdrop assisting them by fishing all the wicks out of the cauldron with a toasting fork. Ten standard candles were too few, and the result was unpleasantly strident; thirty candles was just a few too many, distorting the edges to a subtle creepiness that made the hairs on the back of our necks stand up. Twenty-seven and three quarters seemed to do the trick, and we did several trial runs before making the final version in the higher-quality wax.

Milton, you see, had invented a strange device, which can accurately be described as... fuck, I don't know, _a strange device_. Mostly it was a scoop-like chisel on the business end of a dowsing rod, the prongs of which were to be affixed to the subject (in this case, me) by means of a copper breastplate with dozens of tiny springs on the inside. Milton explained, through descriptive gestures and Arthur, that the resonant frequencies produced by speech could be funneled into the rod, which would vibrate the chisel, which would carve the 'shape' of the sound into the wax cylinder, which was mounted on a spindle so that it could move freely.

I didn't believe it until I saw it work.

It was strange to see a physical representation of what I sounded like. Most people say my voice is kind of gravelly, but the shape it made in the wax was more like a fine, snaking river, full of switchbacks and sinuous curves. It looked _nice_. I was kind of proud of it.

They showed me how to make it work, what Arthur called 'playing it back': pour a steady stream of water over the side of the wheel that corresponded with the order in which the sound was carved (we pressed a pin into the wax to indicate where to start, so I wouldn't forget), which would cause the wheel to turn on its spindle, and liquid would move along the deeply-graven grooves like it was a water-wheel, and in the sound of the water you would, _somehow_ , hear my voice.

'You sure this isn't some kind of forbidden witchcraft?' I asked Sparkler as we loaded the cylinder carefully into a box lined with cotton wool.

'It can't be forbidden if it's only just been come up with,' he pointed out. 'Trust me, I come up with things all the time that _feel_ like there ought to be a law against them, but there never is when I go and check. Those prone to moral chastisement are not as creative as they think they are when it comes to the depth and breadth of sins one can accomplish of an afternoon.'

'And here I'm struggling to get around to some of the _regular_ sins. We're so different, you and I.'

'Tsk, _please_. The only reason I got myself squared away before you did is because you're a hopeless romantic who's also a liar.'

'Hah! And you're not?' I stopped what I was doing to make a sarcastically encouraging gesture. 'Carry on with that thought, Mr Emotionally-Shuttered Charmer. I'm all ears.'

'Well,' said Dorian, 'look at it this way: When I lie, everybody _knows_ I'm lying because I do it with a big flashy smile on my face and a certain amount of theatrical topspin to the delivery. Also the occasional wristy motion of the hand.'

'Dead important, the wristy motion,' Sparky agreed from the background, where he was experimentally doing an engraving on a leftover chunk of wax with a needle-thin jet of magical flame. 'Makes all the difference.'

'Right you are, my sterling apprentice. And,' Dorian went on, 'everyone knows I'm a hopeless romantic because I actively poke fun at my own cynicism, thus underscoring its bitter poignancy in contrast to the cheery facade, making one wonder whether I have hidden depths, whether it's all an act to shield my poor little wounded heart, et cetera.'

' _Have_ you got a poorly wounded heart, Mr Dorian?' said Snowdrop, whose solution, upon being faced with any of life's trials, was to apply pears to the affected area.

'That's precisely what people wonder, love,' Dorian replied, skirting the answer with ease. 'And thus is laid the foundation for my success. I become a mysterious, alluring figure. It encourages people to delve. "Oh, go on, then," I seem to say, "have a bit of a rummage, you never know what beguiling new character flaw you'll find next!" Whereas _you_ , Varric, tell everyone _everything_ the second you open your beastly face.' He rolled his eyes. 'You say all the stuff you actually feel but pretend you're lying when you do it, and you pretend so hard that people actually believe it, and when other people believe it, you start to, yourself, until you don't believe you ever felt it for real in the first place.'

'I... sorry, _what_ _?'_

'Completely baffling, aren't you?' Sparkler threw his hands up and looked to the heavens (too bad the ceiling was in the way), relieved at having got his point across at last. 'Now you may begin to understand why you sometimes find me sitting in the tavern, repeatedly thumping my head against the bar and groaning curses against all Tethrases and every variety of Varric.' He put the lid on the box and ushered Snowdrop over to tie a fancy bow around it to keep it closed. 'Everything becomes clear once you look at it from the appropriate perspective.'

The appropriate perspective, in his case, was Having Just Got Some The Night Before, which apparently upped his cheeky smugness by about twenty degrees.

'Now, hang on,' I said, 'isn't honesty the whole point of this Proper Wooing situation?'

'I can do a proper woo,' Snowdrop announced.

'Go on, then,' said Dorian.

' _Woooooooo_ ,' she intoned.

'That's quite good, actually. Well done.' He turned back to me. 'Look, yes, the point is to be honest, but be honest _the first time_. Straightforwardly. None of these superfluous crinkly bits, you're not a filigree bookplate. Remember our little phrase? Go on.'

It was my turn to roll my eyes. 'There Is No Subtext.'

Dorian clenched a victorious fist. 'Yes! He _can_ be taught!'

'Shut up.'

'I will.' He tapped the top of the box. 'Once you've shown this to him.'

'I think I want to do a few of the other things, first.'

'Which?'

I told him.

'I see,' he said. 'Are you sure about the second one?'

I shrugged. 'It's worth a try, at least.'

'But the _shyness_. Do you think he can overcome it enough for that?'

'It doesn't have to be _lewd_.' Though we'd strayed pretty far into that sort of territory, already, now and then.

'No, but doing it at all would probably make him blush until his hair turned ginger. Which I would pay to witness, by the way.'

I ducked into my office to put the box in a drawer of my desk. 'I didn't mean I'd ask him out of the blue. I'll warm up to it first.'

When I went back out, Arthur caught me by the arm, as if he was about to deliver an important message.

'Remind him he's safe, first,' said Arthur earnestly. He always sounded almost painfully serious when he spoke, but especially now. 'Show him it's not a game to you, even though it can feel like a game sometimes. He has to know you remember what he's scared of, and that you'll never become whatever that is.'

Dorian gave him a long look. 'Perhaps you're the one who should be giving us all lessons.'

Across the press room, Milton was paying careful attention, and when Arthur caught his eye they both smiled and looked away.

Arthur scuffed his shoe against the floor a bit under the scrutiny, far more comfortable with things that were written down than what could be expressed aloud, and I couldn't blame him. 'It's just what I know works.'

* * *

He was always the last to leave the War Room.

'Curly! Do you have a second?'

He looked relieved to be intercepted, and leaned against a bit of masonry that was still holding the place up. 'By all means, keep me from having to confront Lord Edgewise about how squeamish his personal regiment is. I had them watch Cassandra and Iron Bull sparring this morning, and six of them had to go and have a _lie-down_.'

'In fairness, that's a lot of people's reaction.'

Cullen smiled wryly. 'Let's hope we intimidate the enemy half as much. Was there something you wanted to tell me?'

'Yes,' I said. There were a thousand things I wanted to tell him, starting with how gorgeous he looked in the dusty sunlight that illuminated the corridor, and how whenever I had a private moment I kept reading over that poem he'd sent me the previous week, and how all I ever wanted to do for the rest of my life was to have him look at me like he was looking at me right now, with that little up-turned tilt of his eyebrows, the soft curve of his scarred smile.

'Well?'

I'd thought back on the things I knew Cullen worried about, both generally and in relation to myself. The little tells, things he'd mentioned in letters to Arch, our conversations on the crossing from Kirkwall. Things we'd struggled to convey, things that weighed on our thoughts that neither of us could bring ourselves to admit.

I handed him a narrow scroll. This seemed like a perfectly natural thing for me to do, and it was a testament to how accustomed we were to writing rather than speaking that Cullen didn't even give me a questioning look, he just sat down on one of the stone benches, unrolled the length of paper and read what I'd given him.

 _You needn't fear censure_  
_You needn't fear pain_  
_You needn't believe_  
_I am in it for gain_  
_You needn't assume_  
_I am judging your past_  
_And you needn't assume_  
_I don't want it to last._

 _You needn't fear spite_  
_Or an acid remark_  
_You needn't fear how_  
_I'll behave in the dark_  
_You needn't fear how_  
_You might look when in bed_  
_You needn't fear heart_  
_And you needn't fear head._

 _You needn't fear thoughts_  
_I'll eventually think_  
_You needn't fear fights_  
_On the nights that I drink_  
_You needn't fear faithless_  
_Or jealous behavior_  
_And you needn't believe_  
_That you must be my savior._

 _The things you'll endure_  
_I will detail below:_  
_How I'll fuss at the weather_  
_(Especially snow);_  
_How often I'll send you_  
_A gift or a poem,_  
_And when I draw you things_  
_I'm determined to show 'em;_

 _The crack in my voice_  
_When you stroke back my hair;_  
_How there's really not room_  
_For us both in your chair;_  
_How sometimes when I look for you_  
_You can't be found;_  
_How when you need me most_  
_I may not be around._

 _But you needn't fear how_  
_I may kiss you hello_  
_And you needn't fear how_  
_We'll embrace when I go_  
_And you needn't fear how_  
_I will long to remain_  
_And you needn't fear censure_  
_You needn't fear pain._

When he'd finished he seemed to notice he'd been holding his breath, and exhaled slowly, rolling the scroll back up and tucking it away in his pocket.

He looked down. I looked up. Together we looked like the annual meeting of the Skyhold Floorboard and Ceiling Inspectors Synchronized Observation Team.

'Thank you,' he said at last, blinking a bit.

'I mean it,' I said.

'I know you do.'

'You believe me?'

He laughed at the end of a breath, shaking his head and looking away, pretending there was something in his eye. 'Yes, I believe you.'

Standing in front of him where he sat, I put a hand on each of his shoulders, which felt somehow more daring than instructing him via letters how to get off for me while I was away.

'Good,' I said. It was all I could think to say.

Cullen lifted his hand and ran the backs of his fingers from my temple to the bolt of my jaw. The gentle scritch of stubble made a faint, almost musical sound amid the thunderous tide in my head.

'Will you stay a moment?' he said softly. 'Stay with me.'

I hadn't moved. 'I'm right here.'

'I feel like you're about to disappear at any moment.' He seemed to search my face for some answer I couldn't give him with words, even through the conduit of ink. 'Like if I blink a second too long, you won't have been here at all.'

I nodded a little. 'I feel like that all the time. You get used to it.'

'I'd rather not.'

'Yeah, me neither.'

Cullen moved his hand, let it drift along the edge of my collar for a moment, hesitantly, down the decorative stitching at the edge until his hand was over my heart, which did a catchy little riff of apprehension.

'How did this happen?' he said, and he might not have been addressing me at all.

I took his face in my hands. 'I'll let you know as soon as I figure that out.'

We didn't kiss.

I look back on that moment now, through the suspect wisdom of years, and I wonder if I've always _just missed_ the narrative sweet spot when it comes to the big scenes. You know what I mean? The scene that gets summed up in a dynamic tableau that goes on the cover. A kiss on the cover guarantees a sale. Two scruffy, tired-looking people with their eyes closed and their foreheads touching, one seated for the duration because the other guy only comes up to his bicep? Not so much.

We didn't press against each other in passionate abandon. Nobody swooned or hung off the other person's arm, hair blown dramatically by the wind. We just existed together for a moment, joined by a few points of contact, our breaths syncing up, and for the time being that was more than enough.

In time, we would feel a bit silly about that. In time, we'd mumble and part and make excuses and go about the rest of the day, with dopey smiles on our faces and an unusual spring in our steps. In time, the mud would settle and the water would be clear.

We didn't kiss.

But we could have.

* * *

It was kind of like stealing. It was exactly like stealing. It was, in fact, if we're being truthful, stealing.

'But it's broken rubbish,' said Chopper in the kind of whisper that could startle birds from the rafters. 'Miz The Iron Lady says I ruined it with my axe.'

'You did ruin it with your axe,' said Kipper, who, being slightly nearer adulthood, knew how to whisper like a normal person. 'It went clean through the back part. Look, it's all flapping open with the stuffing disgorging itself.'

'That's a good word,' said Dollface. 'Disgorging.'

'Good name for a weapon,' Chopper agreed, then added in a dramatic, growly voice like a tourney announcer, _'The Disgorgerrr!'_

I winced. 'Maker, the more you repeat it, the worse it gets.'

Each of us positioned ourselves at a corner and attempted to lift the enormous antique chair, "attempted" being the operative word.

'Andraste's bum-oley!' Chopper exclaimed, falling back onto his own. 'That's heavy'r'n a horse!'

'Please don't try to pick up a horse,' said Dollface, resident equine expert. 'You'll get a kick in the brain, which would only make things more difficult for the rest of us.'

'Better than pickin' up this bleedin' chair,' Chopper grumped. 'Why can't we get Mr The Bull to help us? He's got the biggest muscles.'

'Because,' I said, trying to brace myself against the wall and scoot the chair with my feet, which did nothing, 'Mr The Bull has a very good reason to be nice to Iron Lady all the time.'

'What's that, then?' said Kipper, taking the opportunity to pick at a spot on his chin.

'Because she probably knows exactly how to take over the world, and just happens to be holding off on total domination until we've collected enough shiny things to make it presentable.'

'Oh, right,' said Kipper, accepting this answer immediately.

'I thought you liked her,' said Dollface, who never accepted anything for more than two seconds before interrogating it. There are people who question authority, and there are people who back authority into a corner and demand to know what the fuck it's doing. I shudder to think what would happen if you put Dollface behind a big desk. Empires wouldn't crumble, they'd immediately hand in their resignation and retire from public life.

'I do like her,' I said, tackling the chair from a different angle (somewhat literally). 'Her terrifying, calculating stoicism is what makes her such a delight to be around. You need people like that to keep things running smoothly.' I just hoped Dollface wasn't getting any ideas. That was a futile hope, of course. All kids ever do is get ideas.

'Carn't we get someone to magic it up in the air?' Chopper suggested. 'Sparky might do it, if you don't mind some burned bits.'

'He's having his meditation lesson with Solas,' said Kipper. 'Besides, magic takes strength, too. If four pretty strong people can't lift a big chair with their arms, one scrawny person can't do it with his staff just because it's a staff.'

'Not sure that's how that works,' said Dollface.

Kipper walked round the chair, trying to find a better way of lifting it. 'Working together is better than using magic, anyway.'

'Not when none of us can do it,' Chopper pointed out.

'Well, I'm sorry to say, I think our Chop's got a point,' Kipper admitted. 'If we don't get someone stronger than us to help, I don't see how we'll get it out of here.'

We all looked irritably around at the storeroom, which was a mess of broken things, dusty crates, unmarked sacks of mysterious origin, and the occasional battered copy of one of my books.

'Sod this,' said Chopper. 'I says we cut it up into smorler bits and carry them away one by one.'

'It's a nice chair,' I said, 'giant hole in the backrest being the exception. If we saw it to pieces, it will no longer be a nice chair, and I don't think we could make it look like one again.'

'Not even with a _lot_ of paste?' said Chopper.

'Not even then.'

'Not even the really good kind you get from the knacker-man? It's not made of flour or a potato,' Chopper added, as if we didn't know, 'it's made of a cut off horse's—'

 _'Not even_ with the really good kind,' I said, to spare Dollface's feelings about ponies.

We gave up on the chair, making the trek back across the castle together.

Dollface hopped up to walk along the edge of the battlements with her arms out for balance, occasionally dipping her foot over the dizzying sheer drop, effectively scaring the crap out of me and enjoying herself because of that. 'What did you want a big whacking Orlesian seat for, anyway?'

'I was going to have somebody sit in it while I draw his portrait,' I said. I could embellish a person all day, but I'd never been very good at making up furniture details off the top of my head.

Kipper and Dollface exchanged a knowing look.

' _Somebody_ ,' said Kipper.

'Hmm- _mm_ ,' said Dollface.

'Why're you lot lookin' at each other like how old mums look at each other when their husbands is talking?' Chopper demanded. 'What d'you know's going on that I don't?'

'Don't trouble yourself,' said Kipper loftily. 'It's grown-up stuff.'

Chopper crossed his arms and gave them a mutinous glare. 'Twelve's not grown-up, twelve's only old enough to be _spotty_.'

'Quiet, Mads,' said Dollface. 'You'll have spots someday too and you wouldn't want some titchy nug-nose making personal remarks about it.'

'I haven't got a nug's nose!'

'You're right, yours is blobbier!'

'All right, all right,' I said, holding them apart by the back of their tunics as we went down the stairs. 'Why are you two so fighty today?'

There was some discordant muttering as they both scowled and wouldn't look at each other.

'Care to repeat that?' I said.

Kipper intervened, resuming his new role as the voice of occasional maturity. 'A pretty dwarf lady arrived today and they both quite fancy her but neither of them had the guts to go and say hello, so they just fought about it off in a corner like _children_.'

'Well, guess what, Kipper, I _am_ a children!' Chopper grumbled under his breath.

'Lucky for you, not fancying her yourself, huh?' I said, elbowing Kipper a little.

He shrugged. 'I told them she's got raccoon's eyes, but that doesn't mean other people can't like that.'

'They're not _raccoon's eyes_ ,' said Dollface, whose few experiments with shoplifted cosmetics had tended in that direction thus far, though perhaps not always on purpose. 'It's _sophisticated_. All the proper Orzammar ladies do it.'

'You don't know, you've never been in the ground prop'ly!' Chopper pointed out. 'Cellars don't count! You've got freckles and _everything_. And you know what freckles is? Freckles means you're covered in _bird cack_ from looking up—'

Dollface spoke over him, rolling her eyes. 'Oh, and you're not sky-blind as well, tanface? Pull the other one!'

I threw out my arm so she bumped into it and stopped. 'Whoa, who taught you to talk like that?'

'Farla Gwahlter says tanface all the time,' she muttered, not looking at me.

'Yeah, well, tell her she shouldn't! Maker's ass, you guys are too young for this internalized bullshit.'

We got walking again.

' _Gunilla's_ a bullshit,' Chopper said, sticking his tongue out at her.

'Don't say "bullshit", you're seven,' Kipper told him automatically. 'If this lady's here,' he added, wrenching the subject back into line, 'she can't _really_ be a proper Orzammar lady, can she? Big eyeliner or not.'

I frowned, holding the door for them down to the press room. 'What's she look like?'

Dollface sighed dreamily. 'Like she knows _everything_.'

* * *

We sat around a table in the Herald's Rest—me, Sparkler, Tiny, and the Inquisitor. We had drinks in front of us, which was the point.

'Fuck her,' I said, to general approval.

We looked at the drinks. We drank the drinks.

'I mean,' I went on, 'really? _Really?_ Who in their right mind would think that was a good idea, ever, for any reason?'

'Damn right,' said Bull.

We got more drinks.

'Nevertheless,' said Dorian, 'you held up well under the strain of the sudden appearance of The One That Got Away.'

'She didn't _get away_ ,' I corrected him. 'We both stayed in exactly the same place, feeling exactly the same as we had for ages, only I looked away for half a second and _bam_ , she was married.'

We looked at the drinks and, upon careful consideration, drank them.

'That's awful,' said the Inquisitor.

'Here, try some of mine instead,' said Dorian. 'It's fizzy.'

'No, I mean that's an awful thing to have happened to Varric.'

I laughed, brief and mirthless. 'I don't know if anyone's noticed, but awful things tend to happen whenever I, you know,' I made an explanatory gesture, 'exist.'

'Hey, cheer up,' said Tiny, nudging me with an elbow the size of a wine cask. ' _We've_ got your back, even if she didn't.'

'There's a reason I'm always running around with humans and elves and everybody else,' I said. 'Because they'll stab you in the back. Dwarves stab each other in the _front_ , and then tell you it's your own fault.'

A barmaid took mercy on us and brought more drinks so we wouldn't have to get up.

'And you know something?' I said. 'You know what the absolute, supreme fuck of it is? Two of these kids I look after, they say some of the worst shit a dwarf could say to another dwarf, and they don't even know why they say it. Like, it doesn't _mean_ anything to them yet, other than knowing it's supposed to hurt.' I glared down into my glass like it was responsible for the situation. 'It'd be nice if we could just... stop hurting people, for five minutes. Even two! Two minutes of not destroying future generations would be great.'

The Inquisitor patted me on the back in a conciliatory way. 'I know what you mean. Sometimes it just doesn't feel like we're helping, even when we're doing our best.'

'You know what's not helping,' I said, 'is this horrible, horrible mead. Why do I ever order this? It's like somewhere, some bees and a bad orange decided to invent a beverage for the sole purpose of making me consider a lifestyle of wholesome abstinence, which is an appalling prospect entirely contrary to my personal goals.'

' _Speaking_ of abstinence running contrary to one's goals,' said Dorian.

'Oh, here we go—'

Dorian charged on, undeterred. 'You know what would make you feel better? Snuggling down for a nice, long nap.'

'He's got a point,' said the Inquisitor. 'Sometimes a sleep does the trick, and everything feels less dire. Well,' this was accompanied by a so-so gesture, 'maybe not after _this_ much booze. But other times, absolutely.'

Tiny muttered something to the Inquisitor behind his hand.

'Oh, he doesn't mean a _nap_ nap?'

'They have some kind of best-pals euphemism code,' said Bull. 'Don't ask.'

But the Inquisitor always asked. 'What sort of nap does he mean, Varric? Do tell.'

'Starts with a W,' I said miserably, 'and rhymes with… "ank".'

'"Ank"?' said the Inquisitor. 'Oh. _Oh_.'

'You could even invite a friend!' Dorian pressed, with tipsy enthusiasm. 'Though perhaps not two friends. One is enough to be getting on with.' He raised his glass a little in my direction. 'A blond one, I think. It's a blonds sort of night, don't you agree, Bull?'

Bull did finger-bolts at me. 'You bet your ass it is.'

'No,' I said. 'I'm not betting my ass, or anybody else's ass. Ass will not come into the equation.' I stood up. 'I'm going to write some depressing poetry and get this out of my system for the last time. I'm sick of the past not staying buried, so I need to just... just dredge it back up again—'

'Like a book in a fountain,' Dorian chimed in, bastardishly.

'—and face it and...' I took a steadying breath, pushing in my chair so I wouldn't sit back down in defeat, 'and _deal_ with it.'

There was a long moment where no one said anything, but they all looked at me.

Then Dorian pulled an aghast expression, clutching the edge of the table with unnecessary drama. ' _Deal_ with it? Anything but that! Varric, you must resist, this is the mead talking!'

'Well, I'll support you,' said the Inquisitor. 'Probably not for more than twenty paces or so, but still.'

There was the sound of a big hinged knife flipping open. 'Wouldst you like to hear my professional opinion?'

I turned around, giving Spike a censorious eyeball for making me practically jump out of my skin. 'How did you get in here? It's past your bedtime.'

Spike drew herself up and crossed her arms. 'Mr Solas says I'm insidious.'

'He's not wrong. Come on,' I said, seizing the opportunity to make myself follow through with something, 'people are quaffing in here, you could get stepped on.'

Bull gave me a lazy salute and said, 'You know where to find us.'

Dorian raised an eyebrow at Spike, who gave him a curt, businesslike nod. I got the impression that they knew something I didn't.

'Be good to yourself,' said the Inquisitor.

I didn't really know how to do that, but I went out into the muggy evening air anyway, hoping it might perk me up a little.

Night's sodden cloak lay dropped on the ground, and soon my boots were dark with dew. Scraggly patches of mist hung over the grass here and there, and there weren't many stars. Clouds would descend before morning and slop the yards with mud, but for now all that filled the air was a pervasive dampness that beaded on the stones, and the mulchy, metallic smell of rain making threats.

Spike broke the stillness with her croaky little voice.

'Should I kill someone for you with my knife, Mr Tethras?'

I was startled into a laugh. 'Nah, it's fine.'

'You're _not_ fine,' she insisted. 'I don't like it when you look like that.'

We found ourselves at the ruined wall, and sat. It seemed to be our spot in my times of personal crisis.

'What is it that I look like?'

'We-ell,' said Spike, her knees tucked up under her chin and her arms around them, 'once I saw a man on the side of the road who was dead? And I saw this _other_ man's face when he caught sight of the dead one. You sort of have the same look on your face.'

'Lovely.'

'Not really.'

'I was being sarcastic.'

'Dorian says that sarcasm is a vital part of a clever person's social toolbox,' Spike informed me, approvingly. 'It means that people never know when you're serious, so you can get away with saying what you like, _even_ when it's very rude.'

'Me and Sparkler need to have a talk about your curriculum,' I said.

She was digging around in her little satchel for something. 'I haven't got a curriculum,' she said, 'but I've brought you this.'

In her hand was a very crumpled handkerchief, an old nosebleed stain on one corner of it and a crooked Chantry sun embroidered somewhat badly on another. Tucked carefully into the middle, only slightly damaged, were two bits of shortbread, the sort with a lump of jam baked into a divot in the top so that it gets all glossy and sticks to your teeth.

'Biscuits,' said Spike, in case I'd never seen them before. 'One's for me, as well, _obviously_ , but I shall take the broken-in-half one because I want you to have the special one.'

I took the one she indicated. 'Thanks, kiddo.'

We sat in the misty darkness and ate blackberry jam biscuits that you push with your thumb.

'You know,' she said, 'you don't wobble about as much as most people leaving the tavern.'

'Ah,' I said, 'that's because there's a secret trick to it. It takes ten times more to get me drunk than other people.'

'I'm interested in tricks,' said Spike, as if I didn't know. 'Not drinking tricks, mind you, just tricks generally. Ale tastes like old wee.'

'Sorry to say you can't do this trick, unless you can secretly turn into a dwarf with a family problem.'

'I can't.' She let one leg dangle, bumping her heel against the wall. I have no idea how kids run around barefoot without getting big gnarled bogfisher feet, but some mysteries aren't meant to be solved. 'I can't secretly turn into a whole elf, either, even when it would be quite useful if I could.'

'Why would it be useful to do that?'

'I wouldn't want to turn all the way into a _human_ ,' Spike said dismissively, as if it were blitheringly obvious. 'They can't climb for shit and they've got big weird collarbones.'

'Do they? I never noticed.'

'I haven't got. Look!' Spike did something unsettling with her shoulders, causing them to nearly meet in the middle.

'Whoa, warn a guy before you fold your skeleton up!'

'I'm ten, now, by the way,' she informed me after she assumed a more normal arrangement of torso bones, possibly having picked up on the fact that I didn't tell her not to say "shit" due to her being nine. 'Approximately.'

'Happy belated birthday,' I said, eating the last bite of my biscuit.

'Belated would be a much better name than _Be-Thankful_ ,' said Spike. 'Especially for an assassin. Did you know that if you stab someone really thoroughly through one of their heart-tubes it only takes like, _two_ minutes for a big man to bleed out?'

'I... did not,' I lied. 'How do you know where a heart has tubes on it?'

Spike tutted at my ignorance. 'It's on your insides, _everything's_ made of tubes. It's all tubes in there, tubes and blobs.'

'That's kind of comforting.' We looked up at the grey sky, trying to find stars by squinting, as if that helped. 'Any time someone does something bad, I can think, ehh, what do they know? They're just blobs and tubes.'

'Exactly.'

'You could found a new school of philosophy on the strength of that.'

'I won't.'

'Probably for the best.'

A couple of stars peeked out to see if they needed to put a jacket on, then went back in again.

Spike turned and sat cross-legged, giving me a penetrating stare like I was being rebuked from the pulpit for sneaking in halfway through the liturgy. 'Have you told him you love him _yet_?'

'Working on it,' I said. 'I'm doing the stuff that's written on the canvas.'

'What, "lick a ram's end"?'

'No, not "lick a ram's end". The other things.'

'"Poo on the Chantry"?'

'No.'

She leaned and said in a big whisper, '"Up thine _bum_ _"?_ '

'No, not—!' I saw that I needed to intervene before things got any sillier. 'The _romantic_ stuff, Spike.'

'Oh, good,' she said, snickering a little. 'Because if you weren't, I was thinking that Kipper could dangle you off the scaffolding until you do. What bits have you done already?'

I told her, very carefully avoiding the raunchy parts.

'You wrote him more nice poems,' Spike said, ticking things off on her fingers, 'and gave him fancy romantical gifts, and went and gave him a tea what he likes when nobody had brought him his tea, and you told him he was safe?'

'Pretty much.'

'You haven't even sung him a song yet?'

'Nope.'

'Well, _that's_ your problem! That is why you can't,' she made a little fist and waved it under my nose, _'complete the assignment.'_

I leaned back, away from her waving. 'I can't sing.'

'That's stupid, everyone can sing.'

'I can't.'

She patted me on the shoulder, a little condescendingly. 'But have you tried?'

I sidestepped that, because I hadn't. 'I can't figure out what to sing to him.'

'Make something up, then!'

'What, on the spot?'

Spike made an exasperated gesture. 'You make things up all the time! Just put together words with a melody in them, it's not _bridge geometry_.'

'Oh, it's that simple, huh? I bet you can't make up a song off the top of your head.'

'I can, too!' Spike's wide forehead scrunched up for a second, then she sang, rather meanderingly in the tune department, _'I know a song that gets on Leliana’s nerves.'_

I waited, but there wasn't any more. 'That's it?'

'You can repeat it. I often repeat things I've made up, it's what makes them such ferocious botheration unto Mr Solas.'

'I'll think about it.' Probably for the next three weeks—that one line was already stuck in my head, damn it. She had a gift. A really, _really_ irritating gift.

Spike hopped down off the wall and was nearly swallowed up by the rising mist. 'All the same, I'm glad you've had your biscuit. I'm going to go sleep in Dorian's chair now.'

'But I haven't actually had my biscuit!' I called after her.

'THE BISCUIT IS A METAPHOR, MISTER TETHRAS,' she hollered into the dark, and I was left alone with my thoughts.


	7. The Totem, The Portrait, and The Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiny bounced his eyebrows at me. 'Got any special plans for the holiday, Varric?'  
> 'Why would you think that I'd have special plans?'  
> 'Well,' said Sparkler, chiming in as he leaned his head back against Tiny's enormous pectorals, 'you _are_ Andrastian, and this is one of the only days of the year where that's any _fun._ Also, your beau is a strapping blond Southerner with _hips_ like a—'

Morning dawned hot and bright on the Day of Andraste in Repose. Birds sang in the garden, the stable hands braided the hair of our mounts with ribbons, and if you got anywhere near the kitchen door a wall of heat would force you back a few paces, all the ovens going at full tilt to crank out the first batch of pillow breads for breakfast.

The night before, young girls of various temperaments had overcome their differences and sat up together to tell each other's love-fortunes, pouring the liquid wax off of candles into a bowl of snowmelt and examining the blobby, strangely anthropomorphic shapes that resulted. Young men, for their part, did a lot of raunchy joking but eventually settled down, laboring by firelight to carefully poke holes in eggshells and blow out the insides, filling them instead with watered-down perfumes. These eggs would be thrown at people they fancied, and sometimes left in people's chairs to be crushed when someone sat down. In the Herald's Rest, Tiny and the Chargers sat around singing and talking and drinking, weaving crowns from witherstalk that Tiny had collected in the dunes around the Forbidden Oasis. I heard from Maryden that Tiny had made his special rice pudding in little ramekins and was going to top them with brandy and have Dalish set them on fire (with… archery), but of course Maryden said all of that in iambic pentameter, because some people are a little _too_ devoted to their craft.

The special edition had been printed some days before, to allow for scouts to spread it around to various outposts to be distributed on the holiday itself and _not a moment before_. Any messenger caught peeking was told that Sister Nightingale would have some choice words with them on the matter, "choice words" being some kind of spy shorthand for thumbscrews, I'd wager. It was all kept a big secret, the newsies sworn to silence in the event that anybody asked them. I'd already fielded about seventeen different bribes.

And now the day had come. A festive air had energized the whole of Skyhold, and hardly anyone was working. Even the most tirelessly responsible members of the Inquisition seemed to cool it for a few hours out of the day: Ruffles had put up an apologetic sign on her office door saying she was Unavailable for Matters Commercial or Political at this Time, and was seen having a rather hushed and coy conversation with Blackwall, who looked even more than usual like he'd slept on the floor; Master Dennet held off on his usual duties to present Iron Lady with a beautiful Seheron Akhal-Teke he'd won in a game of dice with a visiting merchant prince, the steed's coat shining so like gold it was hard to believe it could be a real animal at all; and Solas had emerged from the rotunda with a silphium blossom jauntily tucked behind one ear, having decided (it seemed) to take a day off from probing the mysteries of the Fade whether it liked it or not, and join in the revelry of less lofty-minded mortals.

As I went down into the stable yard I heard a familiar scuffing and thumping, accompanied by cheers and boos, and I spotted what it was when I rounded the market stalls. Deftly avoiding the puddle that never entirely went away, Sparkler was skipping over two ropes that were turned at either end by Tiny and Buttercup. Sitting in a clutter at the foot of the stairs nearby were Sparky, Spike, Snowdrop and Dollface, observing and, when it came to Snowdrop, making little tally marks on the back of a discarded envelope; Niblet, Chopper, and Kipper were sitting on the cross-beams of the scaffolding at three different heights (Kipper, expert scaler of scaffolding, was the highest), dangling their feet and shouting together to keep time for the rope-turners:

_Up in Tevinter_  
_Early last winter_  
_Dorian Pavus_  
_Sat on a splinter_  
_He TUGGED and he TUGGED_  
_But the PRICK stayed STUCK!_  
_How many times did he say_  
_OUCH?_

They counted out the jumps as Sparkler alternated what leg he landed on while the ropes spun over him and underfoot, and passersby who hadn't stopped to watch before were now almost required to see how far he got. A couple of Nightingale's people were hurriedly taking bets, murmuring behind their hoods and holding up odds on their fingers to the punters in the little crowd. There was a near miss when a pebble shifted under his boot, but Sparkler made it all the way up to the shouted _TEN!_ before he hopped free of the ropes and dramatically slumped against the scaffolding for support, a hand palm-out at his brow as a few people whistled and clapped, sarcastically and otherwise. Snowdrop conferred with her fellow judges, then gave Dorian a serious little nod to show he had passed.

He spotted me and waved me over. 'Ah, Varric! Did you see? What did I tell you? Grace and dexterity!'

'I saw!' I said, regretting that I hadn't had a moment to put a bet on. 'I never thought you were clumsy, but that looked a _lot_ trickier than I thought it would be.'

'Hence my practicing for ages,' said Dorian. 'One must sometimes make many attempts before one ceases to look like a bloody fool. What did you win?'

I made an empty-pockets gesture. 'Sorry, Sparkler, no gratuity for you.'

'Oh well. Regardless, wasn't I fantastic? I feel properly alive! Like after fighting a dragon, only without the lingering mortal terror and smell of burning leather. No wonder children are always running around and screaming and hopping over things.'

Tiny had finished coiling the ropes with Buttercup, and came up behind Dorian, putting his enormous arms around Dorian's shoulders. 'And here I thought you'd fall on your ass with a vengeance.'

'Not today!' said Sparkler triumphantly. 'The only arse I intent to fall upon with a vengeance is _yours_.'

Behind them, Buttercup made a finger circle and poked another finger through it several times, making a slide-whistle noise and winking hugely at me.

'Power to you,' I said. 'Any progress report from the kitchens? I could kill for a coffee, but when I came down here earlier it was a blistering inferno.'

'Dennet's got a big urn he's doling it out of,' said Tiny, 'with a liberal splash of chocolate liqueur in it, too. He's chuffed that Madame Vivienne liked her pony so much, so he's sharing the mood.'

'Why's he given her a shiny horse, anyway?' said Buttercup. 'She's impossible to flirt with.'

'Sometimes people simply do nice things for the sake of being nice,' Sparkler pointed out.

'What? Gross.'

Tiny bounced his eyebrows at me. 'Got any special plans for the holiday, Varric?'

'Why would you think that I'd have special plans?'

'Well,' said Sparkler, chiming in as he leaned his head back against Tiny's enormous pectorals, 'you _are_ Andrastian, and this is one of the only days of the year where that's any _fun_. Also, your beau is a strapping blond Southerner with _hips_ like a—'

'—person who carries around a longsword,' Bull finished. 'You _sure_ you don't have any plans? We could make sure you have plans.'

'I'm not having a threesome with you guys,' I pointed out, not unkindly.

Snowdrop had appeared at my elbow, because kids always know when they shouldn't. 'What's a threesome?'

'When three people are playing a sporty game together,' I said.

'Were Mz Sera-Jenny and Mr Dorian and Mr The Bull just having a threesome, then?'

'Uh…' I saw Buttercup out of the corner of my eye, silent-laughing and leaning on the wall of Blackwall's barn for support. 'Not quite, no.'

'I see,' she said. 'I s'pose it's one of them things where you need a diagram to know whether it's the thing or isn't the thing.'

'You may be right.'

'I only come up because wanted to say,' Snowdrop announced, 'that Commander Mr Cullen has been having a _big look_ at you from up on the wall, and I reckon he would like to have a look at you more up close, ser.'

I glanced up at the battlements, where Cullen was just visible, leaning his elbows against the ledge and smiling down at us.

'Thanks, kiddo,' I said. 'I'll go up in a second. Having a good Repose so far?'

She nodded emphatically. 'No one has thrown an egg at me at all, even once!'

'I thought the eggs meant somebody likes you,' said Tiny.

'Well, I don't want anybody to like me in a way what means they throw an egg at the back of my head so's I smell like a posh lady's armpit for the duration,' said Snowdrop. 'I hope the Maker makes sure that nobody wants to pour perfume on me at any time, whether his lady-wife's having a lie-in or not.'

Dorian was trying not to laugh. 'That's a very good point. I suppose if anyone fancied _me_ , I'd run away as fast as I could.'

'Exactly! Thank you for being sensible.' She fished a surprisingly long piece of thin cord out of her pocket, tied it very quickly into an intricate design, and handed it to Dorian. 'This is for the two of you, it's a variant of the Lover's Knot what incorporates a ten-bight Gwaren bend and thematic elements from the Anderfels Monk's Head sennit.'

'I've never seen this one before,' said Bull, sounding impressed. 'And I tie a lot of ropes.'

'That's because I made it up,' she said. 'Good day.' And she went off, with offensively good posture.

'Kids these days,' said Sparkler. 'Inventing things. Next thing we know, dear Be-Thankful will have invented a way to decapitate an assailant with her slipper.'

'If she ever decides to put shoes on,' I said. 'I should go see Curly, huh.'

'Yes! Off with you! Do what we talked about!'

'What did you talk about?' Bull asked him in an undertone.

'Proper Wooing,' Dorian replied.

'I can do a proper woo,' said Bull.

'I bet you can,' I said, and made my way up the stairs, past Dollface and her girlfriend who were enthusiastically making out, both reeking of perfume that hadn't been diluted much at all.

I met Cullen at the top of the steps, and we stood looking out at the scarves of green that now wrapped the mountain range, the snow having finally melted away from the lower slopes entirely.

'Hey,' I said eventually.

'Hello,' he said back. 'Beautiful day, isn't it?'

'It is.' I leaned my own elbows on the wall, so we matched. 'Nobody's got you with an egg yet.'

'You neither, I notice.'

'Guess I'm just not very fanciable,' I said with a shrug.

'Nor I, I suppose.'

'I've got a pretty big scar on my face,' I pointed out.

'Me, too,' he said.

'And I don't dress like anybody else around here.'

'Me, too,' said Cullen.

'And half the time I've got ink or blood all over me. It's unavoidable.'

'I have the same difficulty.'

'Guess we gotta be weird-looking together then, huh?'

'I suppose we must.'

We smiled out at the wilderness in the distance, feeling happy and dumb.

'Joyous Repose,' I said, setting something carefully down on the stone at Cullen's arm.

He picked it up. The little obsidian totem caught the light, its glossy blackness shining like wet ink: an image of Andraste, oval face surrounded by perfectly symmetrical waves of hair, eyes gently closed and lips parted as if in a sigh of peace, a semicircle of halo at the crown of her head, to which a loop of cord was affixed so the charm could be worn around one's neck.

Cullen smiled. 'Seek after dreams as she doth rest,' he said, the habitual call-and-response answer. It was just one of those things you said, even to somebody who didn't dream. 'Thank you, Varric, it's beautiful.'

'Here, let me help,' I said, untangling where the cord had become snarled in my pocket, lowering it down over Cullen's head so the charm dropped against his chest. 'Looks good on you.'

'I don't typically wear jewelry,' said Cullen.

'Can't say I'm in the same boat,' I said, flicking an earring. 'Maybe you should learn to accessorize, Curly.'

'I've always wondered,' he said, 'do they… _mean_ anything? I read once that sailors pierce their ears when they cross certain ley-lines, but you aren't much of a one for seafaring.'

I shook my head, then pointed to each gold ring in turn. 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times…' I shrugged. 'It reminds me to not let my guard down the same way again.' I didn't specify in _what_ way, but Cullen seemed to get it.

We leaned against the stones again, a little closer than we had been.

'You give me an awful lot of gifts,' said Cullen after a stretch of comfortable silence. 'I'm not complaining! Only I don't think I've ever given you anything.'

'Yeah, you have.'

'Have I?'

'Yep.'

'I can't recall, if I have.'

'What, heartfelt letters and poetry don't count?'

'The heartfelt letters weren't addressed to you.'

'Funnily enough, I still got my hands them.'

Cullen put a hand over his mouth briefly in mock-astonishment. 'No!'

'It's true. I'm a sneaky mail thief who reads other people's letters and doesn't show a lick of remorse.'

He laughed a little. 'All right, point taken.'

'And anyway,' I said, 'you keep telling me that Archie and I were exactly the same as each other all along.'

There must have been a hint of bitterness or something in my tone, because he said my name in a way that made my chest feel weird and sounded like he was either sorry for me or wanted to comfort me, I couldn't tell which. Maybe both.

'I mean,' I went on, 'of _course_ we were the same guy. I know that. I made him up, after all. On purpose. I sat down and tinkered with his handwriting and everything. I wrote multiple drafts of certain letters until they sounded _him_ enough. I have no illusions about—'

Cullen put his hand over mine and squeezed gently. 'Varric,' he said again. 'I meant it in the sense that whatever it is about him you seemed to think was better, it was there all along.'

I just stood there looking at him, doubting that he knew what he was talking about. It's not like I'd intended Arch Tarstrive to be a good man, or _better_ than me in the first place; I designed his whole persona to be a sort of insufferable, spoiled old queen with little to recommend him beyond his writing ability. Hiding behind his privilege and notoriety like a painted screen, he may not have done anything to hurt anyone, but he certainly didn't do anything to _help_ , either. Any kindness or sweetness that emerged in his character came only from interacting with Cullen, wanting to please Cullen, to make him smile and feel _appreciated_ rather than just _necessary_.

And I wasn't going to tell Cullen all that again, because he knew what I thought. I'd made it pretty clear that the fakery and lies started out as a game to me, a way to needle him, and that I hadn't had any notion of… of falling in…

Damn it.

'You don't have to pretend anymore, Varric,' said Cullen softly. 'I welcome every part of you.'

I don't know why, but hearing him say those words—words I'd written him, him giving me a piece of my own mind—and the bright mid-morning sun making his hair reflect little sparks of light like treasure, and the warmth and weight of his hand over mine, the whole combination of things made me feel dizzy with want and with a profound, _aching_ adoration for him that if I'd read it described in a book would have made me chuck the thing across the room for being too sappy.

 _Double_ damn it.

I leaned my shoulder against his a little, and he briefly touched the side of his head against the top of mine. That kind of moment makes you remember just how short you are, but I didn't give a shit.

'You know something?'

'I know a lot of somethings,' I said with a little smile.

Cullen tutted at the joke before he went on. 'I was thinking the other day about how I… frankly _lambasted_ one of your books, back when you were about to start work on The Herald. Do you remember?'

'I recall a certain acerbity on the subject of protagonist's arms needing medical attention in a timely manner rather than a narratively convenient one, yes.'

 _'After_ that. I criticized the way you used another wound as a sort of gateway to the hero being able to show emotional vulnerability with the love interest, because in my opinion it felt a little cheap.'

'Well spotted.'

'If he could carry on through an entire battle sequence with a huge gash on his arm and not even wince, I mean, surely he wouldn't hiss a breath through his teeth and flinch away when a healer he liked the look of dabbed a poultice on his scratched face.'

'I still stand by my choice,' I said, 'with the acknowledgement that it _was_ a lazy, stupid one.'

That made him laugh. 'I was just thinking, we had rather a similar gateway, didn't we?'

'What, how?'

'If a Greater Terror hadn't broken your leg, you would never have started The Herald, and there would have been no call for me to ask you about Arch Tarstrive's poetry.'

'Well, shit! The more I hear about the senseless devastation demons leave in their wake, the less I like 'em.'

He nudged me, and I nudged him back. He got the last word with a second nudge, which I didn't follow up because then that could go on forever.

'It took an injury for you to allow yourself to open up emotionally,' said Cullen. His hand was still curled over mine, and I liked it there.

'When you put it like that, I sound _great_. Incredibly communicative. I've got the Wounded Gateway down to a fine art. Any time we need to talk about our relationship, just fling me within half a dozen yards of a rift, and things will sort themselves out. Any time you're looking for affection, you can throw a tiny knife at me from across the room.'

'Varric.'

'We could remind Sparkler of the Old Country while we're at it and drop me out of a big window. I'll open up like a bag with the drawstring pulled out.'

 _'Varric_.' He cupped his hand against my cheek, turning me to look at him. 'I understand.'

I scoffed a little, but I wanted to hear more. 'You do, huh?'

'It makes sense why hiding behind a character would feel safer than honesty.'

'Doesn't make it _right_ ,' I said.

'No, it doesn't make it right,' he agreed. 'But it makes it real.'

I looked into his eyes.

You know how when people look into somebody's eyes in a story, there's all this nigh-fantastical insight that goes on, with Secret Sadness and Inner Wisdom and similes with stars and limpid pools and trapped opals in them? Well, that didn't happen. I looked into his eyes and I saw: his eyes. One pupil was bigger than the other because of the shadow cast by the angle of my head at the time, sun in the other one making it small. The whites of both were slightly bloodshot, like they always were, but the bruisy circles under them were lighter than usual, and since I had rarely seen him up so close in anything other than light from a hearth across the room and scattered candles, for the first time I was able to see the soft dash of very faint freckles there, lighter than the ones on the backs of his hands. The eye with the sun in it certainly didn't have any trapped opals, but the color was like raw garnet, ruddy autumnal-apple shades in the brown.

I wanted to say a lot of things, and also didn't want to have to speak at all. I wanted to have _already done so_ , to have surmounted that hill and made it to the other side, where we could fall into each other's arms and rest.

But I had wooing still to do. I was aware of the depth of broken trust I had yet to bridge, and while Cullen seemed confident that a simple plank-and-rope sort of deal was enough to withstand the storm, I didn't share that confidence. I knew what work was ahead. If I let him down again, it was a long, long drop. I had to reclaim what was lost.

It was my responsibility to rebuild the arch.

'Listen,' I said, looking back and forth between his eyes and—couldn't help it—his lips, 'I had this crazy idea that I want to run past you.'

He seemed taken aback, but curious. 'Go on.'

'Speaking of the occasion of that _completely_ justified tearing-apart of the tropey bandage wince scene…' I moved back a little bit, out of kissing distance and into a more conversational one. We were still right next to each other, shoulders touching and his left hand holding my right, but for the moment I'd taken a definite step back in the sense of intentional intimacy. 'Remember my ribbing you about posing for pin-ups?'

'Oh, Maker, not this again,' he groaned, laughing. 'Surely you haven't had some sort of… I don't know, _fan mail_ indicating that sort of thing is "what the people want" after all?'

'Hmm, no.' I took a risk, lifting our joined hands and briefly pressing a kiss to the backs of his fingers. 'Just me, Curly.'

'I… oh. I see.' There was that blush, that gorgeous flare of color that I couldn't stop thinking about.

'If you wouldn't object,' I said, 'I'd be honored if you would pose for me.'

'I don't know if I'd survive that,' Cullen said, shaking his head and smiling.

'Aww, come on. I won't let you die.'

He bit his lip, and I watched the slow slide of it from between his teeth. 'Promise?'

* * *

It wasn't a priceless late-Xavierian six-legged armchair with clawed feet, which would have been impressive to draw, but it was _my_ chair, in _my_ room, and Cullen was sitting in it. Draped sparingly with white furs and crowned by a circlet of laurel at his brow, limbs relaxed as he reclined, illumined by a thick gold bar of sun from the window, he looked like a romantic hero out of Fereldan legend, a seductive reimagining of the Silver Knight, or maybe Dane. It was difficult not to stare. It was difficult not to forget about the drawing entirely and just drink in the image of him, capture it perfectly in my mind and lay it away between the leaves of memory like a pressed flower.

'Am I sitting all right?'

'You're fine, trust me.'

Cullen straightened the length of soft pelt that probably seemed, to him, to preserve little or none of his modesty whatsoever. 'Thank you for turning around, before.'

'No problem.'

'I'm not accustomed to undressing in front of anyone but other Templars.'

I nearly asked if I should hunt down a philter for myself so he'd be more comfortable, but I realized that was just nervousness talking and that he wouldn't take it as a joke, which would be perfectly reasonable of him not to do, because it wasn't funny. So I said, 'Don't worry about it,' instead, imagining how pink his cheeks would turn when ( _if_ , Varric, not when, _if_ ) he ever did undress for me and let me watch.

(During the game of Wicked Grace where he'd literally lost his shirt—and everything else—to Ruffles' machinations, Tiny had very helpfully stood in front of him, blocking him from view as he removed each item of clothing and we all twiddled our thumbs and looked at the ceiling, whistling innocently to ourselves.)

I glanced up at him, then down at the page, back and forth as I drew the wire frame and then the outline of the pose, the window, the chair. The room was quiet—as quiet as a room near the tavern _can_ be on a holy day—save for the scritch of my pencil against the page. Cullen closed his eyes, his head tipped back against the back of the chair. I paused mid-stroke, pencil still touching the page as I watched the movement of his throat as he swallowed. Outside in the yard somewhere, someone was singing alone, a soft tenor with a Highland lilt to the vowels, _come to your window, o! my beloved, open your heart to me, o! hear my song._

Cullen hadn't trimmed his hair since before the battle at Adamant, and his curls lay blocky and loose against his neck, nearly brushing his shoulders. There was this Templar superstition: if a trusted ally turned on you, you didn't have a haircut until you had made certain the person responsible met an appropriate end, else you would lack the strength to see justice done. And while remembering the betrayal of the Wardens hurt like hell, not to mention the heart-wrenching events surrounding that battle, a part of me was glad, because it meant I got to see what Cullen looked like with his hair long. A shallow, greedy little gremlin part of my heart hoped justice could wait a while longer, too.

I wanted to say _You're beautiful_ , so I paid careful attention to the play of light along his thigh, the sweet and flowerlike position of his right hand. I wanted to say _You're tempting_ , so I shaded the fullness of his lower lip as if it were swollen from kisses, blushed the skin of his chest and neck as if he were warmed by eager anticipation. I wanted to say _You're perfect,_ so I captured each curl's lush curve and how it caught the sunlight, the faint dusting of gold that led from his heart down his belly and beneath the furs that lay across his lap. I wanted to say things, but saying things didn't always prove that you meant them. I needed to show him, instead.

When the portrait was done, I shook a dash of fixing powder across it so the pencil wouldn't smudge, shaking away the excess and getting up. Cullen, who had been silently basking in the warmth of the sun, seemed to become more alert at the sound, straightening up in the chair into a position that seemed more natural to him, which is to say, he looked like he could get things done and give orders as needed, even without breeches.

'Finished,' I said. I crossed the short space between us and showed him what I'd drawn.

I heard his breath catch. 'I don't really look like that, do I?'

'Oh, I see,' I teased him, 'first you say I make flimsy narrative choices, and now I can't draw a guy. All right. Message received.'

He breathed out a soft laugh, shaking his head. 'You _know_ that's not what I meant.'

'Maybe you should tell me what you meant, then.'

'I look…' He glanced between the drawing and my face, then back again, shifting a little where he sat. 'I look _debauched_.'

'Well,' I said with a shrug. 'I didn't say my imagination was going to take the day off.' I winked. '"Seek after dreams as she doth rest," and all that.'

'It's very good,' Cullen said. 'I'm not saying you did a poor job of it, it's just…'

'Come on, Curly,' I said with a smirk, 'I handed you some furs and a little crown and had you slouch in my chair with one leg crooked over an armrest, and you thought the result _wasn't_ going to be racy?'

'Maybe I hoped it _would_ be,' he said, with the faintest hint of defiance. 'But I didn't think I'd be right.'

'You're pretty much always right,' I pointed out. 'Or at least close.'

'I'm really not.'

'Oh, shut up,' I said fondly. 'Let me say something nice about you out loud for once, would you?'

That did shut him up, for a moment. Then,

'You can say nice things whenever you want.'

I neglected to mention that to be able to do that, I'd have to think of how to say them and get over myself, first, but I was sure he had at least some notion of the reason why I didn't shower him with compliments at all times. Either way, I knew myself, and I knew that the best thing for the situation was to keep the teasing banter going, and not weigh it down with known issues that were hovering in the background anyway. So I said, 'Is that so?'

'That is so,' said Cullen.

'I can call you what I like?'

'Try it and see.'

I wet my lips, paused, then said, very quietly and wondering if he would laugh, 'Stunning.'

He smiled, and I could see his blush making an appearance as it had in the drawing, though not yet so intensely, and Cullen looked like he wanted to glance away shyly as he so often did, but instead he held my gaze. 'Go on.'

'Perfect,' I said, stepping up between the relaxed spacing of his knees where he sat, as I had when we lingered with our foreheads touching in the corridor outside the War Room. 'Gorgeous.'

'Again,' he said softly, watching as I shaped the words.

I wove my fingers into the curls I'd so carefully drawn. 'Charming.'

'Again.'

'Valiant.' I rested my knee against the edge of the chair and moved my other leg so that I was positioned over his thigh, not pressed down against it, just sort of kneeling with it below me and between my knees. I wasn't technically sitting in his lap, but it was a close thing. 'Honorable, kind, compassionate.'

He was whispering now, leaning into my touch. 'More.'

'Occasionally a pain in the ass,' I said, just to make him smile. He gave me a good-natured swat on the arm in response. ' _What?_ Not _all_ the time.' I kissed his forehead, just a click of lips against his brow. 'Beautiful.'

His eyes were gently closed as he nuzzled against my fingers. 'You used to call me "dear boy" and "darling" and such, do you remember?'

A different hand, a different name, but oh, the same feelings. 'I remember.' I swallowed. 'You're okay with that?'

'Yes.'

I kissed him below one eye, so gently it was barely a touch. 'Beloved.' I felt him sigh, heard the soft sound of it, and a warm coil of want seemed to roll down my spine in a wave. 'Sweet Cullen. You _deserve_ the attention, dear boy. You know that, don't you? You know how much I've wanted to please you.'

His inhalation was a little shaky, but he nodded once.

'You know I want to give you everything you need, everything you desire.'

He opened his eyes, golden lashes casting fine shadows in the sunlight. 'Yes.'

I kissed the corner of his mouth, and inched back just enough to end the touch as he tried to chase my lips with his own. He made a little bereft sound of frustration and longing, and I placed kisses along the side of his neck, and whispered, 'You know you're _mine_.'

Cullen moaned, and it was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard.

'So you're going to listen to me,' I went on, lips brushing the sensitive spot below his ear. 'Aren't you, dear boy?'

'Yes, of course.'

'You're going to get up,' I said, dismounting from the chair (I was surprised it had held both of us to begin with), 'you're going to put your clothes back on,' I took in the sight of him, flustered, blushing just like I'd drawn him, now, lower lip a darker pink from biting it in anticipation, the widening of the line of scant curls along his lower abdomen now visible where the pelt had shifted a little to one side in his lap, 'and you're going to wait.'

 _'Varric,'_ he said, a pleading note in his voice.

I went back over to the half-desk, pressing the spot that made the panel spring out from the side. I'd had the presence of mind to take the box with the strange wax cylinder in it up to my room instead of leaving it in my office, and now I withdrew it and set it on the arm of the chair where Cullen sat.

'This is for you. There are written instructions on the inside of the lid.'

'What is it?' he asked, still somewhat breathless from being worked up, and I could tell just how worked up he was, and I had to restrain myself from seeing _more._

'It's… a weird thing that just got invented, look, it doesn't have a name,' I gestured vaguely to indicate I had very little to do with it, 'but it's yours now, and I want you to play it back if you ever doubt me.'

Cullen seemed to take this all in, and said, 'What?'

'You pour water on it and it moves and makes a noise,' I said, 'it's difficult to explain. But… if you ever find yourself wondering how I feel about you, like _really_ wondering, like you don't know if you can believe anything I've told you even in a serious voice, then you play it back and listen.'

'Play it back,' he repeated, nonplussed.

'There's instructions in the box, Curly.'

'As you've said.' He frowned a little, but seemed content to let the matter rest for the moment. 'You're really going to climb into my lap, whisper sweet nothings in my ear and then tell me to take a mysterious box and leave?' He didn't sound miffed. More amused than anything, really.

'Pretty sure that's what I just did, yeah. And, for the record,' I raised a finger for emphasis, 'they weren't "nothings", I meant every word.'

'And I liked every word.' He was leaning over to reach his tunic from the little pile of his clothes, holding the pelt in his lap so it wouldn't slide to the floor. 'I don't mind, you know.'

'Mind what?'

'The anticipation.'

'I seem to recall you writing about how much you enjoy it,' I said. 'Not to say that anticipation is forever.'

'No, no,' Cullen agreed.

'There will definitely be a point where anticipation stops.'

'Absolutely.'

'But for now, you're going to enjoy the rest of your holiday.'

'And you'll enjoy yours,' he said.

'Thoroughly,' I said.

'Right.'

'Good.'

In all honesty, I wanted to fall into bed with him right then. The bed was right there! It was literally two steps away! I wanted to, but I knew that because of the circumstances, because of the _day_ , because timing wasn't everything but it was definitely _something_ , because I still had so much to rebuild, I needed to wait a while longer. And that was all right.

When Cullen was once again dressed, we lingered at the door for a long moment, touching each other's hands, faces, our breaths shallow with hope and falling into line.

We could have kissed.

But we didn't.


	8. The Serenade, The Traveler's Tale, and The Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I saw Cullen turn to the kids who were sitting on the wall next to him, dangling their feet and looking mischievously back at him. 'Maker's breath, is he going to _sing?'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the latter part of this chapter contains canonical levels of battle gore
> 
> songs note: the mabari serenade is an original, but _rocky road to denerim_ has an obvious irl folk song counterpart, which is lively as fuck (i recommend the version by The Dubliners)

The holiday cheer didn't wane even a little bit as the day drew on. Niblet had given Sparky a very good drawing (of Sparky), and they spent some time sitting on the fence together, kicking their legs and sharing a peach back and forth. Iron Lady had agreed to teach Snowdrop about the intricate hair- and beard-braiding codes that were fashionable in Ostwick, and Dorian was sitting in, letting Snowdrop practice on him, even on his mustache.

Flissa had been elected (by way of a shouted "aye!" sort of voting process) the Queen of Dreams, which meant that she was honor-bound to lie down on a cot covered in flowers while unmarried young men threw buckets of water on her to "wake her up", so that she squealed at the temperature and giggled. Cole was playing go-between for about twenty-odd people, showing up here and there to point them in the direction of someone who was interested in and compatible with them; Solas looked on, with a sort of wobbly-smiled fondness.

At about midday I saw the Inquisitor talking in fervent, hushed voices with Seeker, who then grudgingly (and a little bashfully) came up to me and asked if I would read out a chapter of the book I'd made her, and do the voices, which I _absolutely_ did, and because she didn't specify _what_ chapter, I picked one of the raunchiest ones, just to make her turn practically purple with embarrassment.

What with this and that, I'd happily put off the thing I intended to do.

But now it was time.

We'd agreed upon the specific hour in advance. We'd practiced in secret, hammering out the problems and refining the details. We'd had a couple of arguments, a couple of late nights. We'd had solutions occur to us while one party was halfway across the map from the other, notes hastily scribbled down and stuck down the jerkin of the nearest messenger with dire warnings as to what might happen if it were mislaid. But now it was time, and all the apprehension in me had faded to a sort of dull, resigned dread that I could almost ignore.

Almost.

Krem was waiting at the foot of the curving stairs down to the lower courtyard, smelling strongly of cologne grenades. There was something beside him under a tarp. He gave me a nod. I gave it back.

'Is he up there?' he said.

'Kid says he is.' Cole was very helpful when figuring out whether someone was in their office without opening the door. 'You ready? Fingers limber?'

'Limber as anything.'

'You're gonna devastate the local maiden population with this, you know.'

'I don't know if devastate is the word,' said Krem. 'I predict a rather more positive response.'

'You'll devastate their knickers, at any rate.' I blew out a fast breath. 'All right. Not going to panic.'

'Right,' said Krem.

'People do stupid shit in front of other people all the time.'

'I can confirm that that's absolutely true.'

'It'll be fine.'

'You can't lose!'

I took issue with that. 'I really can, though.'

'Bullshit. You'll knock his socks off.'

'I don't know if he _wants_ his socks knocked off, especially in such a stupidly demonstrative fashion.'

'You _would_ know that, if you could see the way he looks at you.'

'I often see the way he looks at me.'

'Oh, really? When?'

'When I'm looking at him at the time, myself.'

'I mean the _way_ he _looks_ at you.' Krem made a gesture I'd never seen Dorian (our only other resident Tevinter) use before, sort of kissing the fingertips of either hand and then tossing the kisses away into the air.

'Well,' I said, 'I can guarantee Cullen's never done _that_ while he's looking at me.'

'Come on, Varric, you're stalling.'

'I know I'm stalling. I'm a professional staller. No one can put things off like I can. I've left the country just to put something off more effectively.'

Krem crossed his arms. 'You're doing that thing where you babble and make people laugh so they forget what you're supposed to be talking about.'

'Is it working?'

'No.'

'Damn.' I slumped a little. 'Why did I agree to do this, again?'

'It was your idea!'

'No, it wasn't, it was a little kid's idea. Their idea of fun often involves making adults look like complete dumbasses.'

'Then at the very least, you'll give them a hearty laugh.' Krem lifted the tarp and cast it aside like someone taking off their cloak to prepare for a duel in a play, revealing the Orlesian harpsichordette I'd inherited from my assassinated associate. It was about the square footage of a small shield, lacquered in black with fiddly gold filigree vines on the lid, the major keys carved of onyx, the minor keys the pearlescent off-white of highly-polished halla horn. Krem had rustled up a one-legged milking stool from somewhere so he could play at the proper height without setting the instrument on a table, knees angled nearly up to his ears. He grinned at me. 'Time to knock off some socks.'

I braced myself for the inevitable jeering and laughter that would arise from this ill-advised scheme, climbed up on an upturned crate, and announced to the assorted scatter of people within earshot, 'I have a message for Commander Cullen!'

People turned to look, because that was the point. Krem played a little twinkling riff on the harpsichordette and said, at an equally high volume, 'What _kinda_ message, Varric?'

'A very _important_ message!'

'Why not give it to a scout?' somebody advised from across the yard, sticking their oar in early to establish a trend of audience participation. With some people you don't even have to try.

'Because I wouldn't know if they could carry a _tune_ ,' I shouted back.

'Why not go up to his office?' said Krem.

'Because I don't think that fancy instrument you've got there could fit through the door!'

Krem played a couple of jaunty chords. 'Well, that's _one_ way to compliment a guy.' Several onlookers laughed. People in the upper courtyard were starting to come and look down over the wall at us.

'Can anybody help me out?' I asked the assembled, striking a dramatic pleading sort of pose. 'I don't think he can hear me up there.'

I spotted Spike and Kipper perched up on the battlements next to the office door, sharing a big piece of pillow bread between them in what I assumed to be a peace-making gesture of goodwill. 'Oi, Commander Cullen!' they shouted, slightly off-kilter from one another. _'Cullen!'_

Other people started yelling his name up at the ramparts, too.

' _Cullen! Cullen!'_

After about two thoroughly fun minutes of this, there was the sound of a heavy door being wrenched open, its outer handle rebounding off the wood with an almighty clank. 'Maker's sake, _what is it?'_

The crowd fell silent, to see what I would say. Krem played a sort of flourish up and down the keys, noodling around along the edges of a discernable melody.

'Curly! Glad you could join us!'

'What's all this about?' He didn't look annoyed—perplexed, maybe, and a little amused that I was making a scene, and perhaps a little apprehensive that I might embarrass him. And I was _definitely_ going to.

'I was talking to Master Dennet a while back,' I said, which was burying the lede in no uncertain terms, but give me a break, I was nervous.

'Were you?' said Cullen.

'I was,' I said.

'He was!' Dennet called through his cupped hands from across the yard.

'And I asked him, Dennet, you're a guy who knows things! Why doesn't the Inquisition have any Mabari? I mean, we have practically everything else. We have about a thousand corvids. We have a _nuggalope_. We have a hideous beast whose hellish appetites can only be slaked by the blood of evildoers—'

On cue, the Inquisitor bellowed cheerfully from somewhere, 'Shut up about my horse!'

 _'Never!'_ I hollered back. 'And Dennet, because he's Fereldan and he knows things,' I went on, 'told me all about how the process works. I'm not a dog person, so I didn't know, except for in the _vaguest_ of terms.'

'Get on with it!' somebody suggested.

'I'm coming around to my point! Yeesh, you can't rush a storyteller, settle down.'

The ubiquitous scout bookies could already be seen leaning in and murmuring odds to people, taking coins and writing in their little flip-top notepads.

 _'Apparently_ , they have to be loyal to you,' I explained, as if Cullen didn't know. 'They have to take a good hard look at you and think, Maker's balls, _that's_ the guy I wanna spend my time with.'

'They forge a powerful bond, yes,' Cullen called down to me, clearly wondering where this was going.

'Well,' I said, as Krem trilled along the harpsichordette and landed solidly on a tune, 'on that note, I have something to say.'

I saw Cullen turn to the kids who were sitting on the wall next to him, dangling their feet and looking mischievously back at him. 'Maker's breath, is he going to _sing?'_

'YES, HE'S GOING TO SING,' Spike announced to about fifty miles of mountain range, and it was clear in her tone that if I tried to get out of it, she might very well kill me with her knife.

I took a breath, scrunched my eyes shut so I wouldn't flub the opening because people were staring at me, and yeah, I did sing. I felt stupid about it, but I did it, because sometimes you have to make a fool of yourself before you get something right.

 _Oh, Fereldans are tough when they're marching to war_  
_They know how to strike fear and to give 'em what-for_  
_But without a war dog, they're so sad it's a cri-i-ime—_  
_I guess I'll have to fight alongside you this time!_

I opened my eyes to see how bad the reaction was, but people looked gleefully smug to be watching one of the higher-ups get sung at. You could get away with this kind of thing on the Day of Andraste in Repose, because all shame became optional, and indignity was something you could let yourself enjoy.

Cullen was staring at me in disbelief, his mouth slightly open, and seeing an opportunity, Spike stuck a scrap of pillow bread in it; Cullen's mouth snapped closed and he frowned at her, chewing, then looked back at me and made a _what the fuck is this?_ gesture.

I shrugged innocently, like I had nothing to do with it whatsoever, and I figured that since no one was throwing rotten vegetables at me, I could carry on.

 _O Commander! steadfast and above all reproaches!_  
_There are drums in the air and the battle approaches_  
_But you left your Mabari back home on the she-e-elf_  
_So I guess I should fight alongside you myself!_

Reader, I don't have a very good range—my voice is better suited to a few lines of a drinking song at a time while mostly drowned out by a whole lot of other folks, conveniently imbibing whatever's in my glass when there's a part of the song I can't manage. I was rasping on the higher notes, but honestly it sounded a lot better in the open air than it had when I was furtively practicing in my office, or under my breath (and out of breath) while climbing rock formations and shooting Venatori out in the field.

 _See, I'm able to learn at least twenty commands_  
_I'm about the same height if you measure in hands_

I saw Cullen stifle a surprised laugh, and I could see him starting to blush even at that distance, which only spurred me on.

 _And I'll rise to the challenge and headline the hu-u-unt_  
_As long as I'm beside you when you're at the front!_

By this point, people had the rhythm down and were no longer able to resist the primal urge to bang on things and clap whenever you can detect a beat. That's the thing about the Inquisition, to be honest: when all is said and done, at the end of the day, we're just simple, impulsive people who like to feel included, and enjoy a good knees-up in between fighting the forces of evil.

Several girls (and the ginger guy with enormous biceps who worked in the armory) had pelted Krem with perfume eggs so far, but he played dauntlessly on. People were occasionally wolf-whistling up at Cullen and shouting vulgar encouragements, and he tried to give them stern looks but was smiling too much for that. Someone threw a flower at me, which bounced off my head and came to rest on top of the harpsichordette, rather prettily, I thought.

 _So paint kaddis on me 'til I'm blue in the face_  
_I'll move quicker than gossip as we lead the chase_  
_I may not be a dog, but I'm faithful and tru-u-ue_  
_And I'd jump through a hoop just to land beside you!_

Now came the verse I'd rewritten about a dozen times, often while not in what could be called a responsible condition. I'd run it past Krem until he was sick of me and threw his hands in the air and told me to just do what I always did: make a joke, and smirk, and see if I can get away with it.

 _Oh, Fereldans are hard when they square up to fight_  
_They keep thrusting and knocking and pounding all night—_

I saw that Sutherland kid out in the crowd, making a _pay up_ gesture at Cabot the Bartender, who grudgingly handed over his entire money pouch. One of the more ominously silent sorts of scout had taken off, presumably to inform Sister Nightingale that I was finally making direct overtures and didn't need to be murdered, after all.

Cullen was hiding his (now very red) face in his hands, but Kipper elbowed him so he'd look again as I finished.

 _So when battles are won and you're ready for be-e-ed_  
_I propose I should lay down beside you instead!_

Krem embellished the sequence of chords again for an outro, ending with an emphatic fifth.

The people who'd been stomping and clapping along now lost the beat as the noise dissolved into talk and laughter and two-finger whistling, and I did an elaborate little bow, like Sparkler when he was being especially sarcastic. A couple of people shouted up at Cullen again, sentiments along the lines of if _he_ didn't get in there, then they would (which is always good to know, and gave me a little punch of confidence). Up on the wall, Kipper was giving me a big grinning thumbs-up, and Spike had fixed Cullen with a penetrating stare and seemed to be issuing some sort of ultimatum, flipping her knife very fast while she talked.

'Nicely done,' I told Krem. 'You've got about ten eggs' worth of shell in your hair.'

'Mine is a heavy burden,' he said mock-solemnly. 'Are you going to go up and see him?'

'Nope,' I said.

'You're an idiot,' said Krem.

I hopped down off the crate and gave him a pat on the back before going up the stairs. 'Yep.'

* * *

'Mr Tethras?'

I was sitting in the great hall, surrounded by the sounds of talk and laughter and feasting. Various people had come to ask me questions about this or that, congratulate me on the special edition of The Herald, crack jokes about my singing voice or the height difference between me and the commander (and the lewd implications thereof), so I wasn't surprised. But those had been familiar faces I could put, at worst, half-remembered names to; I didn't know this person at all, but nevertheless felt like I'd seen him somewhere before.

'My name's Johnny,' said the young man. 'Cartwright,' he added, for clarity. 'My mother's name is Deega. She wrote a letter to your news-paper?'

Comprehension dawned. I _had_ seen him before—in the best drawing that his mother was able to have done for the price of two royals. She'd exaggerated him a bit, or the artist had, but his beaded dreadlocks and freckled cheeks were unmistakably the same. 'Oh, hey! Glad to see you're alive and everything! When did you get here?'

'Just now, on the hay cart,' he said.

'Well, shit, welcome to Skyhold! Sit down, have a drink. Tell me your story.'

And he had a very interesting story to tell. I put it in an edition of The Herald, later, so some may already have heard it, but I'm going to repeat it here because it led to something important, but mostly because it's fucking ridiculous and makes me proud to have lived in a time when these events could occur in real life:

While traveling alone from his hamlet (called Kittering-in-the-Wold, ever heard of it? Me neither) into Redcliffe, where his family had always sold their rugs, Johnny Cartwright was set upon by bandits. But even as he had his back against a rock face, with a sheer drop on one side of him and a drawn sword on the other, a ball of ice screamed through the air and bowled over all three of the bandits who'd accosted him, because apparently rebel mages aren't picky with their aim when a rogue Templar is trying to stand on their neck, and just such a scene had been unfolding on the other side of the hill. Johnny had been about to grab his wares and flee, when a man wearing a big feathered hat and seated astride a sleek black horse galloped up, shot all of the offending parties with a shortbow, and introduced himself as "the notorious highwayman Lemuel Nutbean".

Johnny told him that he'd never heard of the notorious highwayman Lemuel Nutbean, and Lemuel Nutbean had said, well, you look like a kid from the sticks, I'd be surprised if you knew what Age it was. To which Johnny replied that notorious highwayman or not, well-timed savior of traveling rugmakers or otherwise, Lemuel Nutbean seemed like a prize arse. This prompted the highwayman to sweep off his theatrically large hat and challenge Johnny to a duel. Johnny, whose combat experience ran more towards fighting his friends with sticks when he was supposed to be sweeping the kitchen, said he would absolutely trounce the devil out of Lemuel Nutbean, so thoroughly that his ancestors would wake up for the sole purpose of telling him off for being a complete weenie.

These heated words exchanged and honor challenged, they were about to lay into each other with their bare fists, when something startled the horse. Reader, I don't know if you spend any time around horses, but if you do, I would advise you not to startle them, and the best way to do that is to not spend any time around horses. The horse bolted, and as its owner sped after it, figuring that hey, it was an easy out and now he wouldn't get punched in the face by a yokel who smelled of lanolin, Lemuel Nutbean tripped over a dead bandit and broke his silly neck. Johnny, whose uncle was the hangman in Kittering-in-the-Wold, had seen plenty of broken necks and found himself Not Bothered, and looted the notorious highwayman's clothes, money pouch, ostentatious jewelry and theatrically large hat. The horse, who eventually pulled itself together by remembering its proud lineage, or carrots, or whatever it is horses think about when they're not raising hell, wandered back over at this point and decided that it rather liked Johnny Cartwright in its master's clothes, and stepped on Lemuel Nutbean for good measure.

Johnny rode into Redcliffe, and sold his rugs as planned, and a buxom girl in the Gull & Lantern said he looked like a very well-turned young man _indeed_ , and that she liked the feather in his hat and wondered if it might tickle, and Johnny leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially, listen, don't tell anyone this, but I'm a notorious highwayman. It turns out that buxom girls you meet in taverns occasionally enjoy that sort of thing. I wouldn't know. The only buxom girl I ever met in a tavern would tell you that, in her opinion, I was in the running neck and broken neck with the late Lemuel Nutbean for being a prize arse.

So this girl took Johnny to bed, and in the morning when he was still all aglow from her attentions and the size of her tits, she told Johnny that he must help her get out of Redcliffe because some frankly mad and impossible shit had been going down in that vicinity, and also her brother Terrence was Tranquil and didn't really do well away from the Circle, and the guy who thought he ran the show around here now was trying to kick all the Tranquil out of town, sometimes (thus was the implication) by dropping them into the river in a sack and other such villainous offenses.

Now, Deega Cartwright did not raise a fool, but she also did not raise a philanthropist. Johnny said, well, that's certainly something, but I don't think three people can fit on my horse. My horse, he said, hasn't the most accommodating personality. And the buxom girl, whose name was Róisín by the way, said, damn your horse's personality. Who's heard of you, anyway? I've never heard of a notorious highwayman named Johnny Cartwright, and that is facts. Why are you named Cartwright, anyway, if you don't make carts? If you had a cart, you'd be of a little more use to me in my present difficulties. And Johnny said, now hold on a moment, and was about to explain that he came by the name due to the marriage of his mother to a fellow whose father used to make carts but didn't anymore, but Róisín had already hastily put on the late Lemuel Nutbean's clothing and jewelry and theatrically large hat, and quit the scene with haste, stealing Johnny's ill-gotten horse, who apparently couldn't tell anyone apart if they had that particular hat on.

So Johnny was stranded without even the money he'd got from selling the rugs he and his mother and three sisters had made, and the only clothes he had were those that Róisín had been wearing the night before, which, he felt, didn't entirely suit him. So Johnny took the linens off the bed, wrapped them round himself, and shinned down from the window of the room he and Róisín had taken at the Gull & Lantern, for he no longer had the funds to pay his outstanding debt. Johnny went down to the docks, thinking he might find a day's awkwardly-dressed work there and earn enough to buy a bone needle and some thread so he could make the stolen bedclothes into a tunic and breeches, and then he could get _another_ day's work, and so on, until he had clothes fit to travel in. A fellow at the docks, who introduced himself as Thick Maggie, hired Johnny to help him fish out on the lake for the day.

Thick Maggie had his own story to tell. As they hauled the nets, only occasionally stopping so that Johnny could re-tie the sheet he wore round himself like a Rivaini kaftan, Johnny learned of how Thick Maggie's wife had been seduced by a notorious highwayman with a big hat, whose name, Johnny suspected, rhymed with Bemuel Butbean. Johnny told the fisherman that he had righteously slain the cuckolding bounder in question and permitted a horse to tread on him for good measure, to which Thick Maggie replied that he was in Johnny's debt for avenging his sundered marriage of nigh on thirty years, and when they returned to shore, he gave Johnny all the jewelry and trinkets and the heirloom crystal glasses his wife had left behind when she took to the hills with her melodramatic lover.

Johnny traded these things for traveling clothes, rations, and a big hat as a thank-you for Thick Maggie, who afterwards met a very nice woman in the Gull & Lantern who liked that sort of thing, and they were wed in the Chantry not five weeks after. Johnny set out homewards on foot, amused and in good spirits about the whole affair, thinking, well, that's one for the long evenings carding the wool with Betsy and Dottie and Gertie and Mum! And, being a habitual sort of young man, he took the same route home as he had coming there. Little did he know that just over the crest of a hill, a highwayman and her Tranquil brother and impressionable horse were waiting to swoop down upon the unwary.

Johnny, who had had the good sense to lay hands on a nice, heavy stick he could fight with, managed to fend them off, and even nicked back some of his rug money, but in the offing a Mysterious Stranger had seen all. This Mysterious Stranger was a Templar called Handsome Francis, who was Good and Moral and Doing His Best, and who at first had assumed that anyone so good at fighting with a stick had to be an apostate, but upon inspection realized that Johnny was literally just hitting people with the stick, which was not an apostate's usual M.O.

Handsome Francis approached him and said to him, look, things are mad out here just now, and my brothers-in-arms have gone completely crackers. Just bone stupid mental, the lot of them. I'm out here by my onesie, trying to make sure these idiots aren't straight murdering perfectly ordinary and respectable mages that a month ago (this was just after the Vote for Independence, mind you) we were making sure cleaned their teeth before bed. And I think, Handsome Francis went on, that it might be a clever ruse if you were to travel with me, carrying your big stick—and it's an awfully good big stick, by the way, very Heroic and Masculine—to fool any rogue Templars into thinking you're an apostate so they try to attack us, and then I run them through with my sword, right?

Johnny did not think much of this plan, and he said so without mincing words, because it seemed to him that he'd be like the piece of cheese in a mouse trap, to which Handsome Francis replied, well, ye-es, that's because that's the crux of the plan.

But the thing is, Handsome Francis really _was_ Handsome. It was not a situation of being the nickname you get when you're doing your Templar training up at Our Lady of Perpetual Disappointment Chantry School (or wherever) because you're spotty and your top lip sticks out like a market awning. Handsome Francis lived up to his name. There's something called nominative determinism, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's essentially the person equivalent of Does What It Says on the Tin. So that was a selling point. And, as more of a background concern, Johnny had just about had it with the sort of people who stand on a fellow's neck until he shoots giant balls of ice at unsuspecting bandits, even if doing so saved some innocent-ish rugmaker's life. It was the principle of the thing.

So Johnny said, all right, Handsome Francis, I'll travel with you, so long as after I'm the bait I _also_ get to hit them with my stick. And Johnny added—in a voice he assumed was flirtatious but just sounded a bit demanding because tensions were running high—by the way, how did you get the name Handsome Francis, _aside from the obvious?_ And the Templar said, my given name is Handsome and my surname is Francis. To which Johnny replied, oh.

The pair of them traveled the countryside for many months, saving mages from attack, helping farmers and other country folk with little tasks along the way to earn food and coin and a warm barn to sleep in for the night, and never once did it occur to Johnny to write a letter to his dear old mum. He sent her money when he could, but he just… sent it. By itself. For some reason, he assumed she would know it was from him (because who else would be sending her money?) and would know by some variety of Mother's Intuition that he had become a stick-wielding apostate-impersonator-of-fortune. This is not, I need hardly mention, a worried mother's first thought, and later, upon learning that this was his assumption, Deega Cartwright wondered if she had, in fact, raised a fool after all.

In time, Johnny and Handsome Francis came to be in a pub in a village somewhere along the road, and while they were eating some pretty good vinegar chips out of a basket between them, Handsome Francis said, Johnny-my-pet, there's rather a good engraving of your face on the bit of paper our chips are in in this basket. And Johnny said, the fuck you say? And they unfolded the bit of paper, which had a lot of writing on it that didn't make much sense because it had been cut down from a much bigger bit of paper so it would fit in the baskets the cook put the chips in. They went to the barkeep and said, where's the rest of this big paper? And the barkeep said, fuck if I know, we cuts it down to put the chips in, and they said, we _know_ that, as that is how we found this in the first place. And the barkeep said, it's from The Herald, and Handsome Francis said, what, you get your chips papers off the Herald of Andraste? Pull the other one, mate.

At this stage they got a very supercilious lecture about homonyms, and eventually about the broadsheet published by the Inquisition.

Handsome Francis turned to Johnny and said, Johnny-my-own, why would the Inquisition know what _you_ look like? And Johnny thought, well, there is a slim possibility that I'm wanted for the murder of Lemuel Nutbean, who, for all Johnny knew, was the son and heir of an important noble and had fucked off to a life of crime because he didn't want to shoulder the responsibility of banning or dukery or whatever he was meant, by blood, to do. And, Johnny thought somewhat bitterly, if Lemuel Nutbean _had_ been notorious, everyone would know what the deal was with his personal situation, or would at least have some alluring suggestions thereof that made for good talk round the fire of an evening, but as luck would have it the guy was probably the _only_ highwayman in the world who didn't have at least three folk songs written about him.

So Johnny and Handsome Francis asked around the pub, and then around the village itself, to see if anybody had the full sheet. But every copy of The Herald had been put to some particular use about the home and farm: stuffing boots to keep the tall bit from flopping over, or used to keep drips off the floor while painting a chair, or mixed with paste and used to patch holes in the plaster, and many other things. But by and by, they found enough pieces that they knew that Johnny's mother was looking for him, and they made their way to Kittering-in-the-Wold with due haste.

They discovered upon arriving there that Deega Cartwright, who had been a widow last time Johnny checked, had wed the local magistrate, who had been moved with strong emotion when the former Mrs Cartwright had come to his office to inquire whether she could get a drawing done up of her missing son so she could send it to the Inquisition. The magistrate had gone to visit her every day, to check in on her and her three daughters, and had come to be fond of all of them, but _matrimonially_ fond of Deega. Johnny's sisters, finding themselves equipped with very fine dowries courtesy of their stepfather, found loving (and in Dottie's case, ahem, well-equipped) husbands among the craftsmen of Kittering-in-the-Wold, and they owed it all, they said, to Johnny not coming home. And Johnny was dead chuffed, because he'd never liked Kittering-in-the-Wold anyway, and was damned good at having dangerous adventures with Handsome Francis, whom he thought was _very_ handsome indeed, and Handsome Francis thought Johnny wasn't so bad, himself, especially now that he no longer ponged of sheep.

Feeling like they were at a bit of a loose end once they'd tackled getting closure on Johnny's origin story and all that, Johnny and Handsome Francis decided that it might be a fine idea to join the Inquisition and get it over with, because they were doing things that supported the cause on their own, _anyway_ , but official Inquisition people got better food, proper gear you didn't have to pay for yourself or pry off of a corpse, and there were spies and things who could point you in the right direction when you wanted to hit a bad guy with your choice of sword or big stick.

Armed with new purpose, they set off on a journey across the Frostbacks, and along the way they found a very fine dog whose owner (in the wind-battered camp nearby) had died in her sleep from a wound that had gone off, and had been dead for some time. The dog, who liked these guys immediately for feeding her some ram jerky when she hadn't eaten in many days, came with them, and it became clear a few hours later that the dog, whose new name was Dog, was _very_ thoroughly In Whelp. So thoroughly, in fact, that she seemed about to start decanting pups right there on the mountain pass. I don't know how that's a detail that someone could miss upon being introduced to a dog, because doesn't it make their tits hang down? But our intrepid heroes were not, apparently, very familiar with this process, and thought that Dog must be the canine equivalent of a buxom girl in a tavern.

When a procession of hay-and-grain carts bound for Skyhold happened to pass them by on the road, Johnny flagged them down and he, Dog, and Handsome Francis were conveyed to the fortress, to arrive just after teatime on the Day of Andraste in Repose. Dog, at this very moment, was down in the stables being tended to by Handsome Francis, Master Dennet, and Seeker Pentaghast, whom I had no idea knew anything about dogs, but people have rich inner lives that are often a mystery to the casual observer, and she was probably doing it to avoid the Chantry Mothers asking her about whether she was going to suck it up and be the next Divine already, or what.

'First of all,' I said, having finished taking notes, 'you're a fucking legend. This is the stuff that stands the test of time. Ever heard of the Lay of Adalgis? Famous Avvar ballad, I read a transcription of it once. Goes on for two hundred and ninety-six pages, and it's got a crossdressing warrior god in it. _This_ shit is better. We need to get some decent minstrels on the case like, today.' I poured him more ale out of the jug. 'Secondly, I can't believe that we put your face in the paper and you showed up on our doorstep! That's _fantastic!_ This has converted me to the notion that propaganda works miracles.'

Johnny shrugged, the beads in his hair clicking together. 'I figured it was worth a shot, and if we don't like it, we can go back to doing what we were doing before.'

'With a shit ton of dogs,' I said, raising my mug in toast to the expectant mother out in the stables, where she was probably frightening the horses and that one chicken that liked to harass Blackwall.

'I thought maybe, when they're weaned, we'd give the pups to the Inquisition,' said Johnny. 'You know, to say thank you for getting my mum and sisters squared away for life, and all.'

I made a skeptical noise and so-so gesture. 'We only helped in a very, _very_ roundabout way, kid. I mean, if we're talking about help percentage-wise, you might as well set them down within sight of Róisín, so she can steal them off you.'

'The fact stands that I'm here at the moment,' he said, 'and I don't know where to _put_ however many smaller dogs come out of my main dog.' I could absolutely believe he was the sort of person to tell a girl that he'd just slept with that he wouldn't help her on account of the personality of his horse. 'They've got to go _somewhere_. I mean, they can't go back _in_.'

'I congratulate you on your solid grasp of the anatomical limitations of the problem,' I said.

'Would _you_ like a dog?' said Johnny. 'Or two? Six? I don't know how many drop out! I've never had an animal in my life, aside from the horse, and that was for about a scant seven minutes. My family don't even keep the ewes we get our wool from.'

'Dwarves aren't really dog people…?' I hedged.

'Oh, sod this, you're no help at all.'

 _'However,'_ I went on, holding up a finger, 'I have long thought that the Inquisition would benefit from having some war dogs, so this may be a boon.'

'War dogs,' said Johnny.

'Yeah, you know, dogs that do war stuff.'

'I am familiar with the concept of a war dog, yes. Only these would be quite young and may not even know how to lick their own bollocks for some time.'

'I'm sure somebody could teach them,' I pointed out.

'Got a fellow for that, have you? The Inquisition really _does_ take all comers.'

'Aw, knock it off. You know what I mean.'

Conversation lulled, and we watched the revelers for a few minutes, in particular a visiting Orlesian lady who was leading our baffled and intensely nervous new quartermaster in a lively waltz to the music of a penny whistle played by Moyna from the tavern kitchen. While we looked on, Johnny kept fiddling with the beads in his hair, and I noticed that one of them had a bit that spun around freely, making a tiny metallic noise. I caught sight of Iron Lady, gazing down from her elevated position; she pointed a finger directly downwards and mouthed, _Isn't that the missing boy?_ I nodded, and she looked faintly impressed, and went back out of view, to look down on people in the opposite direction.

The penny-whistler segued into a new song as the dancers parted and found new partners, a familiar slip jig that seemed to emerge whenever a large group had got around some drinks, and people started clacking knives the second they caught on. Staves were tapped on the floor to keep time, and someone over by Gatsi's corner was thumping the table, as was compulsory. About six people of motley accents started shout-singing in unison, two of them breaking off into separate harmonies almost immediately.

 _While in the merry Bloomingtide, now from me home I started_  
_Left the girls of Wycome nearly broken-hearted_  
_Saluted father dear, kissed me darling mother_  
_Drank a pint of beer, me grief and tears to smother_

I remembered this one time when Hawke tried to convince Fenris to sing along to the fiddler at the Hanged Man, and Fenris had monotone-deadpanned his way through a whole verse, scraping the bottom of his vocal range to sound as mournful as possible, just to annoy us.

 _Then off to reap the corn! And leave where I was born!_  
_Me staff of stout blackthorn to banish ghost and goblins_  
_A brand-new pair of brogues to rattle over the bogs_  
_And frighten all the dogs on the rocky road to Denerim!_  
_One, two, three, four, five!_

I thought back on lounging on the plush rug in front of the fire at Hawke's place, the family hound curled up around me on one side like a big, warm pillow as I read the new release of The Randy Dowager, waiting for Hawke to finish getting dressed for an evening out, Hawke whistling faintly from upstairs, trilling lightly through the grace notes.

 _Hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road_  
_And all the ways to Denerim_  
_Whack falal-der-ah!_

'All right, _one_ ,' I said at last. 'I'll take _one_ dog. The rest go wherever the Inquisition needs them.'

'Oh, thank fuck,' said Johnny, deflating with relief. 'Handsome Francis adores Dog, and I think she's all right and all, but I don't think I could handle a whole _pack_ of the bloody things.' He held his mug out to toast me in gratitude, and I tapped mine against it. 'You'll have to meet the litter as soon as they're out in the air, obviously,' he added, but it wasn't obvious to me at all.

'Beg pardon?'

'Well, that's how you _do_ it, isn't it? If you bond immediately, it's got far more staying power. I mean, it can happen at any time, but the first impression is the purest.'

'Johnny, buddy, you're a swell guy but I have no idea what you're talking about.'

'Dog's Mabari,' he said. 'Thought I'd mentioned.' He got up and wended his way into the crowd, letting himself be spun around to the music by several people along the way.

* * *

Sometimes, as a writer, you have to include something that doesn't initially seem to have much bearing on the story. A character sees something in the street and you can't tell whether it's mentioned for foreshadowing purposes or just establishing the atmosphere; a passing comment becomes a repeated theme for some reason and the reader won't know why until twenty chapters down the road; a character who gets immediately killed off has a name, whereas recurring background characters are just The Bartender or The Guard or whatever.

And you (and by you, I mean me) could have declined to include the thing in its entirety, in favor of briefly explaining the events that actually mattered regarding that particular scenario, whatever it was. But I, as a rule, don't do that. I see a blank page, I fill it with descriptions and minutiae until I have to scrunch up small in the bottom corner, abbreviating things. It's a proofreader's nightmare.

But since we're about to delve into some Big Plot territory, I feel like I should fill you in on some facts, and clear up some misconceptions that may have been, at least to some extent, intentionally held onto to create curiosity and tension in a previous chapter.

You remember the book? What the academics started calling the _Liber Mendax,_ that big creepy skin-covered tome that Dorian thought might actually have been written by the Lying Priest from the fable everybody learns as a kid? Yeah, that was a false lead. Hell, it wasn't even a solid lead in the first place. We all sort of knew this to start with, because historically speaking, there are accounts of the magisters who infiltrated the Golden City, even if most of that information has since been lost or blatantly covered up, and here's the thing: there were new sects of their gods— _all_ of their gods—that emerged in light of what the priests told people _upon their return_. If they didn't actually come back, it'd be pretty convenient that all those new ideas cropped up in the same chunk of history, apropos of nothing, wouldn't you say? It'd be the world's biggest coincidence if it just happened that way, without, you know, some of their most influential priests showing up again, or at least being heard about.

Ergo, they weren't banished into personal hells based on their most prevalent character flaws, because how would they have relayed what they'd learned to their followers? The account of Sethius Amladaris, therefore, is probably just a parable, written well after the fact (whatever the facts _were_ ) because people like to pretend they have all the information. Parables are useful for teaching kids about concepts like morality and obedience and such. But when it comes down to it, a parable is a load of shit with about as much academic utility as a heavily-fingermarked copy of _The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Mal Flanders._

Real life has gaps, and dead ends, and plots that go nowhere. This is why made-up stories are more satisfying than reality: deep down, we want everything to be symmetrical, to have a reason, to Mean Something, because if it doesn't, we kind of suspect that Everything means Nothing.

And yet I told you about it, reader, despite it not panning out. I told you about it because it tied together a few narrative threads that otherwise would have needed a different kind of explanation, such as the fact that in the process of translating the _Liber Mendax_ , Milton struck upon the solution to a snag in the design of his voice-recording apparatus. (Arthur showed me the line that had helped, from a passage where the author was banging on about Dumat: _Silence is not peace, but Stillness. In Stillness, one finds the key to Silence; in motion, one is bombarded by noise._ ) And if Milton hadn't fixed the flaw in the breastplate with the springs in it, I never would have been able to capture my voice on a wax cylinder and give it to Cullen. And if I hadn't given it to him, he might not have learned the truth.

But that's for later. Trust me for now, if you can, that you'll hear all about it when the time comes.

* * *

I know a lot of this memoir takes place at Skyhold, and that's because I did spend quite a lot of time there. But while I was supervising my monster kids and pining and composing really corny love songs, not to mention drinking and bickering and occasionally lying on the floor, other plots were continuing to unfold elsewhere in the world, sometimes even in the next room. And because they weren't relevant to the part of the tale I'm telling in this book, I left out a lot of journeys that I took, people we fought, things we discovered. The war against Corypheus continued unabated while I was coming to grips with my emotions, and if you want information about what was happening in the foreground I'd like to point you to _All This Shit Is Weird: The Inquisition Story,_ which I'm told is my best work, and which you should have read anyway if you're trying to wade through this poetically-saturated melodrama with any sense of a timeline or who the fuck these people are.

I'm just going to assume you know the context when I tell the next part of the story.

Among all the muggy and damned uncomfortable places I'd had the misfortune of occupying over the course of my time with the Inquisition, the Arbor Wilds was one of the muggiest and damned uncomfortablest. And this is speaking as someone who's been to the Frostback Basin _and_ the Emerald Graves, where I suspect the plants get that big because the air's thick and smelly enough to be mistaken for the kind of black soil that makes tomatoes grow to the size of a baby's head.

We were in the Wilds to kick the asses of Corypheus' personal army. A word to the wise: if someone has a personal army whose armor all matches, they're not really the good guys. Just a tip for your travels, from an experienced man of the world. The _really_ good guys are pretty much always covered in blood and dirt and look like they got dressed in the dark. Even the members of the Inquisition who'd started out (or _pretended_ to start out) in some kind of tight-knit elite military force with all kinds of training (or—insert noncommittal hand gesture here— _oh, yeah, training, right_ ), were among the scruffier and most worrying of the aforementioned elite.

I mean, Blackwall was grizzled and rugged and all kinds of blocky adjectives that I use at every opportunity, and he employed the kind of commanding growl that made you feel like you were being pinned to a wall by a boar spear. And I could talk all day about Seeker's strange combination of no-nonsense ferocity and angrily-repressed princessness, and how I'm pretty sure she applies her kohl with a finger and some spit while stabbing two different guys at once with the same blade, backwards. Tiny's all shoulders and horns and this ululating war cry that sounds like broken bottles being shaken inside a church bell with a couple of damned souls.

And while Cullen wasn't as haggard as he thought, he was fucking _intense_. He was like a beacon on the battlefield, a furnace of righteousness, radiating power and determination such that it fired up anyone within a hundred yards. So when the Inquisitor and Solas were fighting off a fresh surge of combatants, with Iron Lady some paces behind them summoning a storm that made the air crackle and scream, and I ducked through the crumbling doorway of a half-ruined structure hung with vines to briefly take cover while I reloaded and took stock of my ammunition, I _felt_ Cullen's presence before I caught sight of him on a nearby rise, visible over the jagged teeth of a collapsed wall.

There were Red Templars on all sides, and I spotted the familiar armor of two corrupted Wardens. Soldiers who'd been fighting with Cullen had been cut down, not all dead but nearly, one Inquisition bowman trying to drag herself to her feet using a fallen comrade's sword for support, but her legs looked all wrong, and there didn't seem to be much hope in it. I ran to aid them, not wanting Cullen to be stranded alone against that many Reds, and the second I got a good enough bead on the nearest one to shoot the bastard in the side of the head, I felt the old disgust and dread rear up in my throat like bile.

I hope you've never been near red lyrium, in any of its forms. I hope no one ever goes near the stuff again. It's the worst thing in the world.

It doesn't have a temperature, exactly, but you can feel it pressing on the air, the glow of it against your face like an unwelcome touch. You want to flinch away, to wash yourself clean of it somehow, but it fills the air, creeps into your nose, your mouth, your eyes. Everything's sluggish and too fast at the same time. You feel this sort of _residue_ all over you, inside you. Yeah, it feels like magic, of course it does, but magic that's _sick_. Magic that shouldn't be allowed to exist, much less serve man.

And it sings.

I've been told that some people hear regular lyrium as a whistling, like something hot out of the oven with steam still fast escaping, or they hear a faint, alluring hum in a major key, a sustained chord that never ends. But that's just scratching the surface. The real song is in there, underneath that, and when it really gets to you, when you let yourself fall into it, it's beautiful and so complex that you could listen for the rest of your life and not be able to pin down the ever-shifting themes and melodies with any sort of clarity. It's _perfect_ when it's inside your head, and applying any kind of effort or logic to figuring it out renders you unable to describe it at all.

Dwarves are _supposed_ to be able to handle it better, but we don't. When you find some minerals (or whatever) that glow and compel you to do things, and your response is to structure your entire society around codifying who's worth being alive and who isn't, based on who lives in the best proximity to the stuff and feels the shiny bastards whispering to them more? I wouldn't call that handling it better.

Red lyrium has its own song, in minor to the blue stuff's major, which is worse. To hear it is to know power, feel fear fall away, and to want more than anything to take, to seize, to _conquer._ It's stomach-turning, and you despise it, but you want it. Even if you know how bad it is, how it destroys everything it touches, you want it. You hunger for it. And that reminds you that somewhere inside, down in a dark pit that you've kicked dirt over so no one can see, _you're sick, too._

Don't do lyrium, kids.

Being near Red Templars was almost worse than being near the crystals themselves, for me. You could palpably feel them dying. Does that make sense? It's like when you meet someone really fuck-off old, like "one foot in the grave and lowering gingerly down into it like a bathtub" old, and you have a visceral knowledge that _this person is decaying right now_ , only with the Red Templars there was a creeping feeling that it didn't matter to them in the slightest. They were rotting away, being eaten from the inside, and they _reveled_ in it.

A wave of revulsion nearly made me miss my target. As several of them turned to me, Cullen caught sight of what had distracted them (me), and met my eyes.

It was clear that he wasn't afraid. There wasn't a single flicker of concern in his expression, just that eerie serenity that some Templars get, like every blow they strike is part of a measured ritual they've performed in precisely the same way a thousand times, as if the Maker is gently positioning their limbs, aiming their weapons where they ought to go, _this way, my child, that's it, well done._

I mean, I kind of get it. There's a strange sort of peace that comes during battle, even for me. You get into a good flow, like when you've been writing for hours, or doing a repetitive task until you feel like you're somewhere other than in the corporeal world putting whetstone to dagger or whatever it is. But seeing Cullen had jarred me, flung me out of the ease I'd fallen into over the last three hours of skirmish after skirmish. I felt the sour singing of the red lyrium, tasted the press of decay in the air, and I heard the rush of my heart in my ears for the first time since the first push into the jungle, roaring, roaring like the sea.

_If we don't make it through this, I want someone to have known. To feel like I was able to confess to someone, outside of... outside of prayer._

As I lunged out of the way of a Warden's maul, I saw one of the Reds catch Cullen a blow on the arm with a heavy blade, saw the plate and mail and leather sheared through from the heft of it, saw the flesh rend beneath, the gouts of blood as it painted the grass dark. He'd make it, but it was bad, fuck, it looked _really_ bad, and I wanted to run to him, to flee into the shadow of the trees with him and keep him safe and dress his wounds, but we each had our own opponents to contend with, and the fight hadn't turned in our favor enough to be of help to one another.

He didn't even wince. Can you believe it? I barely do, and I was there. If I read that in a book, I'd give it a skeptical eye-roll and write it off as heroic exaggeration, but I swear, his expression didn't change at all. It was spooky, the level of focus he had. It felt almost holy—like _properly_ holy—and I was awed and a little frightened, inspired to keep going even though I felt like my heart was being torn from my chest for every second he continued to bleed and keep fighting anyway.

I was distracted. I shouldn't have let myself be distracted. Cullen glanced over at me and cried out, _'Varric, duck!'_ and I did, rolling away, evading a blow that could have cleaved my head in two. I landed across the bodies of two fallen Reds that were spiny with growths that sparked and throbbed light like embers, the song ratcheting up in volume as I accidentally touched them. I recoiled, nauseated, scrabbling away across the ground, pushing myself along with my heels as I reached for my fallen weapon, and when I dragged myself up to rejoin the fray I saw Cullen hacking down the Templar that had swung the axe at me, plunging his sword again and again—more times than were technically required to bring about the cessation of life— into a vulnerable gap in the armor that Cullen only knew was there because he'd worn that uniform, himself, and had worn it with pride.

He looked to me again as I was reloading Bianca to fire at the second Warden, who had been knocked down hard but was coming around and trying to get to his feet.

'All right?' said Cullen.

'Never been better, Curly.' I nodded briefly at his wounded arm, his torn armor a ruin of blood. 'You?'

'Oh, fine.'

'Good.'

We took on another wave together.

There was a moment, as Cullen drove his blade into one of the crystal-encrusted Templars (twice as tall as a normal man, fuck, why did they _get_ like that?), a moment when the red reflected on his face, and I saw Cullen close his eyes for the length of a long breath, as if very calmly choosing to deny a thought that had crossed his mind, and my heart clenched, my vision blurring from something other than the sheen of blood and sweat that stung my eyes.

_I understand. I **understand** , all right? I've felt it. I think about it every day. That damned idol. And if I have to live with it, **then so do you.**_

It cost me five shots to down one of those speedy elves who kept coming at us out of thin air with what seemed like dozens of needle-like blades. Too many more were coming, and I couldn't hear the rumble of Iron Lady's storm in the distance anymore, or Bull's aggressive and highly anatomical threats, or the terrified wail of those who fell to Dorian's necromancy. The only Inquisition troops in sight were at odd angles on the ground, or in pieces; none were moving any longer. I darted among the bodies, skidding here and there on glistening, ropey somethings I didn't want to think about, pulling my bolts free from dead Templars, yanking arrows from our own guys and snapping them down smaller so I could load them into Bianca too without jamming the mechanism, and I was starting to wonder how long we could carry on like this.

I didn't want to die not having told him.

 _'Cullen!'_ I shouted over the thump of his blade against an enemy shield, trying to make it across the clearing to him again. I had to stop in my tracks, fire several shots, use the last of my caltrops on the advancing soldiers; I'd run out of bolts again soon, too soon, and would have to resort to daggers, which wasn't ideal. I'm so much better at range. _'Cullen, I love you!'_

But he couldn't hear me, or was too far into his battle trance to notice. And just as I was nearly overwhelmed by the appearance of two more of those speedy Sentinel fuckers, Buttercup appeared out of the deep green of the shadows, spitting curses as she spun through the air, her obnoxious plaidweave leggings spattered with gore, crossing her arms and then flinging them wide with a shriek of effort, having sliced each of my nearest assailant's throats in one fluid motion.

'Reinforcements!' she told me cheerfully as she jumped up onto a Sentinel mage's shoulders and snapped his neck with her thighs, his spine making a sound like a walnut closed in a door. 'Eugh! A _crunchy_ one!' she said, then added, 'About fourteen or fifteen comin', all told. Come on, then, you're needed up on the bridge, Quizmaster sent for you.'

'What about Curly?'

She gave me a big, blustery laugh, high on the fight, as she had been for some hours. 'Oo-ooh, Mr Big Boyfriend? He seems fine. _Scary_ fine.' She plucked one of the smaller knives from her thigh holster and threw it into a guy's eye, and he fell back immediately, gargling. 'Glad I came out, aren't you? Nice day for it!'

I reluctantly followed her through the trees, looking back over my shoulder until Cullen was out of view.

'You're going to trip yourself!'

'No, I'm not.'

'Says you. Know who else said that? Dorian. "Oh, I won't trip meself! Ho ho, grace and dexterity!" Just keep your head up, there's more of these elfy shits up ahead.'

We wove through the foliage and over the huge, arcing roots, just in sight of each other but far enough away to be thoroughly separate targets, making it difficult to guess where we'd turn next, the red glow of hell coming fast behind us.


	9. The Accident, The Urn, and The Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because this is a story, these things meant precisely what you think they mean. Their meaning is crisp and linear, like a thread pulled taut. And because he was real, the thread pulled at something he was tied to, until something happened.

If you've taken my professional advice and read up on the Inquisition, you know what was lurking in the depths of that jungle, and what certain parties decided to do with it. I don't need to tell you who won the argument about the ritual versus the big crack in the flagstones, or the one about the ominous pool. These are things that have been recorded by far more reliable historians than myself, and also me, because I'll give my opinion about _anything_ if you let me.

But there's always something a reliable person leaves out, isn't there? One time somebody—an ostensibly responsible and honest individual—told me a story and neglected to mention until right at the end that the guardsman had split his breeches sometime near the beginning and had had his whole kit hanging out the entire time. Reliable people aren't good at relaying a tale, and this is why you've stuck with my bullshit for this long. In this case, the detail that has been glossed over by other chroniclers (and left out of The Official Account because I felt stupid about it) is as follows:

I was… mislaid.

Now, before I explain, let me point out that I'm aware that that makes me sound like an errant hairbrush, or a bit of paper with someone's address on it, or a cufflink, or similar. And I would like to make very clear for future generations who might get their hands on this book but don't know what I look like beyond their mental picture of "rakishly handsome dwarf who goes around with his shirt open to the waist", I am _not that small._

Nevertheless:

There was this creepy old magic mirror, and everybody was dogpiling through it because the Big Bad was on our heels, and the door, so to speak, got closed behind us. Only I wasn't part of the us, yet. And everybody was so glad to have gotten out of the way of the Elder Bastard that it took them a minute to dust themselves off and do a head count. And somebody eventually said 'Where's Varric?' and somebody else, the Inquisitor probably, said, 'Bugger, I knew we forgot something. Lose my own head if it wasn't screwed on.'

And they went off to the War Room to figure out what to do about things. I mean, I don't blame them for not sticking their heads through the Eluvian again and shouting, "Hey, Varric! You coming, or what?" because Corypheus and his remaining Venatori hangers-on were still on the other side, too. There must have been a moment where it occurred to everybody that I'd probably die a hideous death, but that exponentially _more_ people would die if, by some gallant but foolhardy decision of theirs, a twelve-foot-tall genocidal Taint monster got a back door into Skyhold. The place would be a smoking crater if that happened, and Thedas already had enough smoking craters to blame on that asshole. One is enough, but apparently you can't tell some people.

So somebody (Sparkler) likely shed a single tear and said, 'Damned silly arse, I always adored him secretly, in my heart of hearts, even though he never took my advice properly,' and did a Northern sort of sign over his chest in respect for the assumed-dead. And somebody else (Sarcastic Witch Lady) made a barbed remark about how I might have kept up if my legs were longer, because she's the kind of person who addresses someone as "dwarf" or "elf" rather than ever using their name. Which always seemed kind of weird to me, by the way, for somebody who grew up in Chasind territory, because I hear that the tribes do a lot of mingling down there in these enlightened modern times, adopting people who have fled their more northerly lives (and _everything's_ northerly if you're in the Kocari Wilds) to go live in the woods and eat bark and make clothes out of the belts of dead loggers or whatever. You'd think Morrigan would be a bit more… I don't know, _hep_. But then again, I've heard she actually did all of her growing-up in a moldering old shack with her passive-aggressive mother in the middle of a bog, and then went around ravening for blood with the Hero of Ferelden, known rabble-rouser and menace to polite society, so perhaps some things can be written off to a poor upbringing.

That, however, is a side issue and not germane to the contents of this chapter.

Here's what happened:

They went through the Eluvian, and I—paragon of grace and dexterity—tripped on a dead guy. You'd be surprised how easy it is to trip over dead guys, even when you're used to them lying around. I mean, they're still person-sized obstacles just dropped wherever they croaked. I don't care how light on your feet you are, at some point you're going to pitch forward over a corpse and bang your chin on the ground, and that's precisely what I did.

As I've indicated, the villains were in hot pursuit, shouting threats and throwing around a lot of crunchy Tevinter terminology that would probably make their mothers ashamed to know their kids talked to anyone like that. Self-preservation being my primary concern in nearly every situation, I broke one of Sera's bottles of smoke to create a diversion, scampered off into the shadowy margins of the place, and (I'm not proud of this) hid in a big urn.

I spent several hours in that urn, waiting for all the clatter and footsteps and miscellaneous foreign arguing outside to stop, so I could risk finding a way out of the temple without getting shot through the spine by ancient elves or ancient magisters. I had a lot of time to think, and a lot of things to think about, quite a lot of stupid thoughts coming frantically and without permission. Here are a few of them:

I'm glad the Inquisitor & Co got out all right.

That was some weird shit.

This urn has two little decorative handles on it, so it's technically an amphora.

I need to pee.

Oh, there's a spider on me. Great.

I wonder if the Venatori will go around despoiling the sanctuary, knocking over vases out of spite? They seem to hate elves a lot more than they hate other people, which is saying something because they seem to hate everything with just a blisteringly huge amount of rage, more rage than a person should be able to carry around, and these are Elf Decorations.

That was some fancy armor the Sentinels had. I bet Sparkler would love a set of that. Makes your calves look pretty fantastic.

I've needed to pee for about six hours.

I can't believe Curly (of all people!) found my book after I threw it in the damned fountain. Of all people who would be stupid enough to stick their arm in a fountain in Kirkwall, it had to be the guy I ended up working (and falling in love) with. What are the odds? I'm a betting man and I can't even figure out the odds on that.

Man, I only just got a dog, too. I haven't even _named_ the dog. It hasn't even opened its eyes yet! It's still this sort of peach-fuzzy, wrinkly little object, like a shaved ballbag.

Hawke would be a terrible name for a dog, wouldn't it? I'd inevitably end up saying things like "Hawke threw up in the parlor again" or "Hawke, stop licking yourself, we have guests."

I am not going to pee in this urn while I'm still in it for fuck-knows-how-long.

I don't know where that spider went and at this point I don't want to know.

Where does Corypheus sleep? I can't imagine him sleeping. He probably thinks pajamas are a sign of Southern depravity, anyway. His clothes seem to be a part of his body. How did that happen? Does he wash? Bit weird if you think you're superior to everyone and you don't even wash.

Maker, I could go for a bath. Just a big scalding cookpot of a bath, the kind that makes you turn red like a lobster. I'd stay in it for like a month, refreshing the hot water and ringing a little bell so people would bring me a new book every time I finished one. Maybe I'd have some of that tea that Cullen likes, too. Don't people put tea leaves in their bathwater, sometimes, to make it luxurious? Maybe I made that up. I think I did. Oh! Right, that scene in one of the early installments of _Swords & Shields_, with the wank fantasy. Hmm. Haven't thought about _that_ in a while.

I hope Cassandra misses me and hates that she misses me.

Maker, I'm a petty little shit, aren't I?

I hope the Kid's all right.

If I die here, at least I hope I did right by him.

What will people tell the newsies if I never come back?

I hope I don't get stuck as a ghost. If ghosts are a real thing. Opinions on the matter seem to be split about fifty-fifty, depending on whether you're trying to creep someone out at the time or not.

I think I only have two bolts left. If I ever get back out into the jungle, I'll have a hell of a time defending myself.

How many more of them are still out there? It's like they never stop. How can so many people be loyal to someone who's obviously completely bonkers?

_I know a song that gets on Leliana's nerves, Leliana's nerves, Leliana's nerves—_

Here's a concept, Varric old chum: Drink your flask of poison.

No, that's stupid.

Why not?

Because then some future scholar on an archaeological dig would find a dwarf skeleton in a big elvhen jug along with a Mysteriously Mechanized Weapon Hitherto Unrecorded by Personkind and wonder what the hell was going on there.

People would write papers about you, though. You'd be considered an historical anomaly.

I've already gotten suckered into historical anomalies too many times to set much store by them.

Ha, _that_ shut you up, you stupid thoughts.

Ugh, half of my ass is asleep. Why not the whole ass?

I haven't heard anyone out there in a while. I wonder how long I've been in here? It's dark.

Well, yeah, you're in an urn.

I wonder if this is what it's like to be dead, if your soul doesn't go anywhere. Just… sitting around in an urn, aware of yourself. "I'm still me, just ashes. Weird."

I never even kissed Cullen.

Should I have kissed him? Should I have said when he summoned me up to his office after the presses arrived, "Look, you big dumb beautiful doglord, let's get one thing clear as glass before we waste our breath on any more dialogue: I want your lips on my lips like, yesterday"?

But I didn't know at the time that that's what I wanted, I couldn't have told him then. And he would have thrown me out on my ear, anyway. Or off the ramparts.

I wonder how many bottles of ink I used on writing to him, overall. I threw away so many letters without sending them.

"Do you truly require this many bottles of ink per fortnight, Master Tethras?" Yes, Ruffles, because I basically pour them into the fire.

I wonder if, in the event that I survive this and ever write an honest memoir (doubtful), I'll remember enough of what I wrote to convey the sense of horrible guilt and yearning I felt at the time.

_Nah._

I really do love him. I love him so fucking much, and he never even heard me say it. I didn't even really write it down, did I? Not in those specific words. I kind of danced around the point and said everything _but_. Well, I guess this is my punishment. My ass is asleep because Fate came back to bite me in it. I didn't carry out the terms of my sentence from the Inquisitor, and this is what I get. Death by cowardice.

What would Hawke tell me if I said, "Listen, I'm in love with this guy and I want to be with him for as long as he can endure my company without losing his mind, but I haven't actually said that to his face?"

I'd probably get a friendly smack on the back of the head.

Oh, hello, spider friend. There you are. You're not so bad, are you? We're in this together.

Well, yeah, we're literally in this pot together, but you know what I mean. You're quick on your feet. You seem like the kind of arachnid who knows what's up.

If I die and they ever come back and find me, I hope someone tells Isabela where they put my ashes so she can dance a jig on my grave. She seemed so pleased with the idea.

_A chanting young man from Orlais_  
_Was confused as to how one should pray;_  
_"Point your toes to the sky," said his Brother, "And I_  
_Will make sure you cry 'Maker!' all day."_

Huh. Forgot I knew that one.

I'm hungry.

I lost my flask of Punishment somewhere. That was a nice flask, too. And Cullen's put his lips on it. Any time I drank out of it after that, it was like we were indirectly kissing. Same goes with my coffee flask. Still got that one, I notice, even though it's empty.

Maker's sake, I am _not_ going to put my lips on it right now just because I miss him!

Wrong. I am _absolutely_ going to do that.

Don't think about needing to pee. Don't think about rushing rivers and waterfalls and the slosh of the sea. Damn it, brain.

Huh. Looks like it's really dark out there, now, not just because I'm in an urn.

Maybe somebody's looking for me.

What if they didn't notice I wasn't with them? People are always asking why I'm around, anyway.

Maybe they're glad they lost me. Maybe they're better off!

_Nah._

All right, spider buddy. Time for me to get out of here, so keep your legs and arms where I can see 'em.

* * *

Let me tell you a story.

Once there was a sentimental dwarf from a big, weird, argumentative family, who loved make-believe and wanted to be loved. He pretended so much, and he wanted so badly, that he would tell lies.

He would say that a demon the size of a house had broken his leg, when really, he'd just tripped and fallen off the high rock he'd been standing on to fire down at the demons, and had accidentally fallen on the horrible upturned claws of a dead one. He would say that he knew this guy, right, this really cool guy who was endearing and charming and flirtatious in all the ways the dwarf wasn't, but really, that guy didn't exist. He would say that he didn't know why he couldn't bring himself to talk about his feelings, when really, he just wanted someone who cared about him to tell him how to do it right, because he didn't trust himself not to fuck it up. People believed these foolish things, of course—because the dwarf had learned how to get people to listen when he was terribly lonesome, or when he felt poorly, or when he had remembered something that scared him, even when the people who believed him weren't usually foolish at all.

He pretended so much, and he wanted so badly, that one day he tried to be brave. He turned back to fire his crossbow right between the eyes of the Ultimate Evil, and he not only missed his shot by falling over in the process, but missed the opportunity to get away along with his friends, and he convinced himself (because lies make you feel good) that it hadn't secretly been on purpose.

He walked and walked, looking up at the stars above the ancient temple. When the day returned, he looked up at the broad, waxy leaves of the jungle canopy. He'd heard it said that if you walked in the light and gazed at the heavens, you might see some omen there, and understand things that you hadn't yet grasped. If he walked far enough and looked hard enough, the dwarf reasoned, he could escape the memory of where taller people went when they dreamed. And if he were to disappear, then the things he wanted and the stories he made up for the people he loved would be true, suspended in fond remembrance like amber, blurring with time and memory until the facts didn't matter so much anymore.

The sun quit the sky; the moons came, one big and bright as a royal, the other small and dull as an old penny. The temple was far behind him, and the ground began to slope, thick moss and bulbous mushrooms giving way to blood and bodies. He didn't like the heat, or the damp, and he didn't like the rain when the rain came to pummel him and soak his good boots and his expensive red jacket. But these things were the Trials he had to endure. Stories where great things were achieved always had Trials, didn't they? A character faces sequentially more challenging puzzles and foes, until at last the story is complete.

He walked and walked, longing for someone who completed him.

He didn't like the bugs, or the smell, and he didn't like the fog when the fog came to disorient him and weigh down his lungs and seep through his torn red jacket. But these things were all part of the myth in which he had to participate, before he could return to where he really belonged. He'd never wanted to be the hero. He wanted to tell the story.

One eerie grove gave way to others. Wild dogs howled in the mists. The sun spun round the sky, the moons chasing after.

If you wanted to be a storyteller, you _told_ people. He'd told people a great many things, until they were real. He told people they were strong, he told people they could succeed, he told people they were not alone. He told himself he could tell people _anything_ and they'd believe it.

He didn't like the branches snagging and tearing at the hair he always pulled tight at the back of his head, but that was something he could change. He took it down from its strip of leather and walked on.

He didn't like the way the hunger made his ribs ache in a way he hadn't felt since he was a child, but that was something he could change. He sharpened sticks with his dagger, and he fired them enough times that he could feed himself, and walked on.

And he didn't like the doubt when the doubt came into his heart to wring tears from his eyes and cries of regret from his throat, but that was something he could change. He imagined that the doubt was a sharp stone, and he took the stone inside and he found a deep pit, a hell for it to live in like in a story he knew. He dropped it down into hell, and he kicked dirt over it to cover the mouth of the hole so it couldn't get out. He rose on shaking legs and walked on.

Because this is a story, these things meant precisely what you think they mean. Their meaning is crisp and linear, like a thread pulled taut. And because he was real, the thread pulled at something he was tied to, until something happened.

A woman on a horse saw the dwarf, at the edge of the river. The woman was a green recruit who had never seen War, sent out to search for the lost because that was something she could do without much training, and to see a stranded ally made her quite sick in her heart. She slowly approached the dwarf, who was very nearly finished with a chapter and was about to begin another. And though the dwarf was faded and gaunt from the wilderness, the scout remembered, when she saw the dwarf's face, the orders of the man who was the dwarf's beloved.

He had been on his journey for many weeks, but within an hour of being spotted the dwarf was on the way back to the stronghold he had left. He ate off a tin plate and bathed in a temperate stream. He thought to put his hair back up into the strip of leather that had always tied it back, because he suspected that he wouldn't look like his old self without it, but he left it down, because he wasn't.

The anxiety softened, and his fear ebbed a respectful distance. He was to have someone keep him talking at all times on the journey back, lest he get that distant look in his eye, or retreat into himself entirely. He was to sleep in a tent with several other travelers, where things felt familiar, and was told many tales about the wonderful victories that had been won while he was away. He was encouraged, very eagerly, to tell his famous tales again, though his absence had renewed the edge of the sharp stone that disuse had first left in his throat long ago.

The dwarf rested. He read all the updates that the scouts had been sent, which were replaced with more the farther into the Frostbacks they traveled. And in time, the dwarf was so full of hope that he thought, at last, he could tell the truth.

But he feared no one would believe him, because he was a liar.


	10. Waiting, Hoping, Persevering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I feel such hope, I may drown in it. I love you. I miss you._   
>  _Please come home._

_I'm a fool._

_But you knew that, didn't you? You saw it, when no one else did. I always made you laugh. I was Too Serious, I needed to Lighten Up, and so forth. You were always smiling at something, even in the most trying times. You always kept trying to push through to happiness again. You, who deserve as much gladness as the world might have to give. I hope that in some way, I brought you comfort. I hope, though it seems the utmost vanity, that I was your peace._

_How could I have let you go? Why did I not follow? Corypheus' soldiers would have pursued, but I care not. It would have made it another's responsibility to command our forces outside the temple walls, but I care not! There were many who would be fit for the challenge, had the responsibility been theirs to uphold! Chevaliers, veterans of many battles, with keen minds and experience in the finer points of strategy. Seeker Pentaghast would have known **precisely** what to do and how to lead, had I been called away. Even many of our younger troops would have taken to the task immediately and well, improvising as they do so fluidly, building upon subtle cues from one another! My shameful pride, my sense of Utility and Necessity held me back! I felt compelled to finish what I was called to do, and not waver—not for comfort, not for love. I held to what I had been taught: the denial of self for the good of many, no matter the personal cost._

_Maker, I was such a fool._

_If only we had not been parted! I cannot forgive myself such folly, even after I have striven to heal from so many of my own mistakes, and have long forgiven yours. I would not expect you to forgive me. Part of me wishes for your ire, that I might feel like I have been repaid for my trespass, this chief among my failures._

_If you were here, if I could hear your voice, I would hold you in my arms and never release you. I would tell all the hidden confidences of my being, all I have withheld out of fear or by clinging to what dignity I might still possess; all that I desire and believe and wish about you, I would reveal. I would shower you with ceaseless kisses, praise unending as is unbefitting to bestow upon any mere mortal, but you are not 'merely' anything, in my eyes! You are everything now._

_In moments when I allow myself the pleasure and the agony of it, I imagine what might have become of us, when the greater battle is won. Perhaps I would return to Kirkwall at your side, learn that city as you see it. I might begin to understand your abiding love for its darker corners and terrible secrets, if you were but to show me how to look at it properly. And I could show you where I stood, reading by lanternlight the words that first won my heart._

_I imagine a room, down to its finest particulars, its warmth and comfort and familiarity, knowing that we tread its length and breadth each day and it was part of our home, a home together; I imagine such peace, perfect peace, a stillness in my heart that comes of unquestioned love and security, entangled with you in slumber, disregarding the world and what others demand and expect of us, for a time. Finding our rest together, my back against your chest as you cradle me to you, feeling your breath keeping its slow and sleepy pace with my own as I fall into sweet enough dreams for both of us._

_Would that you could know such peace as I imagine for you, for us. I adore you. I will not rest until I know what has become of you, my love, my life! I feel as if you are already lost to me, though I do not know for sure, I cannot. All that I can do is continue onwards, waiting, watchful, eager for your arrival._

_I pray the Maker watches over you, guides your every step that you may return to me, whole and unharmed, and be my own._

* * *

_What manner of man am I, unable to tell the truth of my heart until I fear the opportunity may be lost to me forever? I **imply** what I feel until it's too late to be direct, and I'm direct when implication would have suited far better. I make the same mistakes again and again, and I fear I have no time left to change. But I cannot deny that I love you! Maker, I cannot help it! I would not wish to help it, if I could. _

_I love you, Varric. I love you so deeply, so contentedly, that I can barely recall what it felt like not to do so. It warms me in the chill, it quiets me in the storm; the knowledge that you exist, that you saw me as more than what I present to the world, that you saw me and knew what you wanted, and could act upon it in ways I was too afraid to dare, is such bliss I cannot describe it. There is no fervent rush of nervous energy in this love, no desperation, not now that I know you have felt the same. I would lie with you and be gratified eternally by the gentlest touch of your hand, the press of your lips to my brow. What I desire with you and what I feel for you are interconnected, yet one does not demand the other—I would love you still had we never touched, had you never demonstrated that you would enjoy doing so as much as I enjoyed thinking on the possibility. I am filled with such intense warmth and fondness for you that I feel as if it may burst from me like beams of light._

_I know you believe yourself to be too deeply flawed for my affection, that you remain convinced that some part of you is too broken for anyone to admit that it's there and yet still care for you. But if you did not have that pain, we wouldn't be where we are now. If you were carefree and unburdened by all you have been through, we would hardly understand one another. And while I fervently wish that you had not suffered, that any suffering still held in your heart might cease at once, I am grateful that our lives overlapped when and how they did. I needed you then, and I need you now. I will, always._

_If you never return, I will ache for you. I long for your presence, your attention, the sudden brightness of your laughter, your gentle touch. If you never return, I will ache forevermore for what we had, and what we never reached._

_Come back to me, beloved! I want nothing else of life but this._

* * *

_Today I went down to the press chamber and sat with the children a while. Your 'newsies' are an insightful lot. I can see why you like them so much. They showed me how to work the presses, first by explaining the concept by drawing a pair of eyes on a spacer block and demonstrating how they looked the opposite direction once applied to the big canvas on the wall, which was grubby with fingermarks and covered from floor to ceiling with curse words and drawings of various private parts. These children make me realize I was deeply serious, at their age, perhaps abnormally so. I wonder what that says about me as a person. You would know. You'd tell me immediately, smirking all the while, probably working in a joke or a compliment so I would look away and smile._

_I sat in your office for an hour or so, Arthur and Milton having very courteously allowed me in. I just sat in your chair, looking round at what you must have looked round at hundreds of times. The color of the spines of your mysterious books, the quality of light, the high and unnatural shine of the surface of your desk. I don't know why I've done this._

_I have begun allowing myself to cry. I do not know what you would think of me if you knew._

* * *

_I went looking for Cole, today. He says you're still alive. I haven't any idea how he would know that for certain, but he says you're alive, and I believe him._

_I can't not believe him, no matter the dread I feel, no matter how unlikely it is that you got out alive. I don't know what would happen if you never came back to me. It's not as if I could return to who I was before. I don't even know who that man was, now. Thinking back on who I was when I was still with the Order, I barely recognize myself in him. Has the Inquisition changed me so much? Have you? I feel freer, lighter, more at ease with myself than ever before, though I bear far more responsibility and doubt than I had then. How did this happen?_

_Most of our troops have pulled out of the Wilds, but scouts continue to be deployed to look for the lost and wounded. I feel such hope, I may drown in it. I love you. I miss you._

_Please come home._

* * *

 _The memory of lingering looks_  
_Is all it takes;_  
_I turn each page, each touch recall._  
_In solitude it sighs, it bends,_  
_It nearly breaks:_  
_My heart is yours, and mind withal._  
_What must I do to draw you here,_  
_And tears abate?_  
_I turn each page and long for you,_  
_And still I wait._

* * *

_I can't believe you wrote me a bloody song. You're ridiculous. I love you._

_Krem has been telling me about your arguments about the last verse, how he said you should be more explicit so I'd "get the message" (as if I didn't already know), how you kept redacting and refining and trying to make sure that you embarrassed me just enough, but not too much. You're a menace, Varric. I loved it. I loved the feeling that everyone knew you wanted me, that you would proclaim it to the world (or at least the courtyard)._

_Cassandra took me down to the stables to see the Mabari pups, none of whom had bonded to anyone yet, save for yours. It was strange to see Seeker Pentaghast looking mischievous, as that isn't a usual element of her behavior at all; I think you would have enjoyed the look on her face when six (six!!!) out of the litter started to climb all over me and began to whine when I had to leave. I don't often believe in the idea that something can be spoken into being, but your musical wonderings about my not having a dog seem to have secured me half a dozen. They now sleep in a basket in my office, and I'm in the process of choosing their names._

_Last night I opened the box you gave me and read the instructions. I haven't followed them, because I hope against hope that you will return to me, and you said to only use it if I ever doubted you. But I don't doubt you. I believe you and believe **in** you, so strongly that sometimes I surprise myself._

_I put the box away. I will wait until I need it._

_Young Miss Sweetwater has been coming to my office and sitting with me. I've had an armchair brought in for her, as she's here so much; for a while before that, she would sit on one of the rungs of the ladder and thump her heel against the slightly-lower steps, fixing me with a beady eye while I worked. I asked her, of course, if there was anything she required, and she said no, she was only keeping an eye on me. As if I might sneak away if she didn't. She keeps bringing me slightly-crushed jammy shortbread. I've been having it with the tea you gave me._

_Occasionally Miss Sweetwater will get out of her chair (where she's typically reading some enormous book on Ye Refined & Ancient Art of Assassination) and lean her head on my shoulder while I read reports. I don't quite know what to do when this happens, and she seems content with the fact that I don't say anything about it._

_I think she misses you, too._


	11. The Way Back, The List, and The Victory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _'That's_ the reason you've been beating around the bush so much instead of,' Krem made a graphic gesture, _'actually_ beating around the bush? You're honestly concerned about your skills as a lover?'  
>  'It's not like you get starred reviews on it,' I noted sullenly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's thedosian drinking ballad was provided in part by whomever originally wrote _the bastard king of england_ , though i don't blame them for not owning up bc that's the kind of composition that defines your career whether you like it or not. loranil's sentimental dalish song, if anyone's curious, is _suo gân._

'I can't believe it.'

'What? It's all true.'

'Even the part with the lizard that changes colors?'

'Even that part. There's all kinds of weird shit in that jungle, I swear on my mother's urn.'

This conversation took place about halfway up the mountainside to Skyhold, during Third Watch. I was sitting by the campfire with Krem, who'd been on the way down into the valley with some of the Chargers as me and the returning search parties were on our way up from it and bumped right into them. The rest of the company had gone on to do what they'd set out to accomplish, but Krem decided to stay on for the night to hear the tale.

'And have you written Cullen a letter informing him you're hale and everything?'

'I…' had not, actually. Krem could see it in my face.

'You _fucking_ —' He stood up in a disbelieving huff, gesturing and pacing a short stretch of ground. I had begun to surmise that this is just a Tevinter Thing. 'I don't even know where to begin! You were lost in the wilderness for _weeks_ , no word, no sign of you whatsoever, everyone thought you were dead, Inquisitor's in pieces but trying to be stoic and carry on with the job, Dorian's tinted his hands black with expensive Perivantium hina up to the wrist and ordered a full compliment of traditional mourning veils from the tailors, the newsies were refusing to believe you were gone for good and have been printing Missing Person flyers and insisting at Spike's knifepoint that scouts distribute them to all corners—Nibs did a very fine drawing of you, actually, I've got one in my pack somewhere—Cassandra's eyes are red half the time and she refuses to mention you, Handsome Francis has been carrying around your dog in a baby sling made of one of your tunics salvaged from the laundry so the creature's never out of scent-range of something of yours and doesn't pine for you and wail all night, and you _didn't write your boyfriend a letter?'_

'Curly's not officially my boyfriend,' I pointed out.

Krem sat down hard again, kicking a little dust at me. 'Maybe because you're officially a damned stupid arse.'

'That could be it.' I took the bottle of wine from him and had a drink. 'Look, the search party sent word the day they found me. I asked.'

'Unacceptable. He should have heard it from you.'

'I didn't know what to say!'

'You _always_ know what to say! Or at least _something_ to say.' He snatched the bottle back, holding it out of reach over my head when I tried to reclaim it in protest. 'You're a fucking disgrace, Varric,' he said, factually and without ire.

'I know.'

'An absolute gods-help-us.'

'I don't know what that means.'

'It means people think, _oh, right, Varric Tethras is a person that exists,_ and then have the urge to pray that they never run into you, you ludicrous tit.'

'I'm starting to suspect that you and Sparkler would get along famously.'

'We do,' said Krem. 'I helped him get together with the Chief.'

 _'Did_ you? I had no idea.'

'We're born matchmakers, us hot-country people.' He relented and offered me the bottle again, because that's what you do when your friend is an idiot: you feed him Sympathy Drinks until he's got up the guts to take action. 'Runs in the blood. We can't see hearts that yearn and not do something about it. Trust me, half the time the Chargers go out on a job I end up talking to some bandit I've just bopped gently with an axe, like, "Look, pal, I know we're at odds here and there's no reason you should listen to me, and the day is young and I may kill you yet, but the redheaded girl in your band of miscreants gives you the eye like she wants to ride you like a racehorse and if you survive, you should get in there."'

'Amazing. I know such helpful guys.'

'And yet you continue to ignore our advice.'

I looked around for the corkscrew so we could open another bottle, but I'd misplaced it like a dwarf in a jungle. 'You've never given me any actual advice, Krem.'

'I have!'

I shook my head. 'You haven't.'

'Three-ish months ago, when you were in the Exalted Plains being set on fire by ancient traps and trying to figure out whether the Mabari Serenade should have a chorus, I wrote back to you and said, Varric, why don't you just go to his chambers when you get home and fuck the daylights out of the man? And _you_ said—'

'I remember what I said!' I spoke over him, half-laughing, digging at the recalcitrant cork with a toothpick knife.

'—you said,' he put on a bad Kirkish accent, '"Well, Krem, there's something called Making Absolutely Sure That Somebody Doesn't Secretly Hate You, which apparently, in my very knowledgeable and experienced and worldly opinion, is a lot more complicated than just letting him fall into my arms, and involves having him swear up and down that he wants it before witnesses and Andraste and a notary public—"'

'All right, all right!'

'"—and even, despite him practically begging me to flip him out like a bedspread, I have yet to seal the deal because I'm a damned stupid arse—"'

'Enough! Mercy!'

Krem continued mimicking my voice. '"—and unless he says to my face Ooh, Pretty _Please_ Fuck Me, Mr Tethras!, I will not believe it, because of aforementioned damned stupid arsedness."'

I waited a moment, retrieving bits of cork out of the neck of the bottle. 'You done?'

'For now,' he said. 'Give me that, you're destroying it.'

'I lost the corkscrew.'

'It's over here.'

'Well, I didn't see it.'

'If it was a snake, it would have not only bit you, it would have picked your pocket, stolen the shirt off your back and begun a fabulous life of Varric Tethras impersonation, signing big loopy autographs for Orlesian milkmaids.'

'I think you underestimate the intelligence of Orlesian milkmaids,' I said.

'I think you should fuck Cullen until his bones turn to jelly.'

I spat out a crumb of broken cork that had found its way into my mouth. 'I may not be that good, all right! What if I'm not that good?'

'What if you're…? Sweet Andraste with her tits out on a picture post-card, are you _serious?'_

 _'What?_ That's a reasonable fear!'

 _'That's_ the reason you've been beating around the bush so much instead of,' Krem made a graphic gesture, ' _actually_ beating around the bush? You're honestly concerned about your skills as a lover?'

'It's not like you get starred reviews on it,' I noted sullenly. 'In an ideal world, I'd get a thorough critique afterwards. There would be editor's marks. Footnotes. Bits circled in red pen, with suggestions.'

Krem was laughing. 'I bet he'd circle your bits in red pen, if you asked.'

I ignored him. 'But people don't do those very helpful things! They just get dressed and go home! Or I get dressed and go home.'

'Or they button you in, give you a friendly pat on the back, and tell you to pay out at the front desk when you can walk again.'

'Nope,' I said.

Krem looked aghast. 'You've _never_ been to a common-house?'

'No.'

'Maker's sake, man, and you from Kirkwall? You don't know what you're missing.' A terrible thought occurred to him. 'What about regular walking-around whoring? You spot an attractive person at the corner, give them few coins to pass the time? _Surely_.'

'No! I haven't! Because I feel like people have to lie to you, and I don't want to be lied to about _that_. I want to know that people are enjoying themselves.'

'Let me tell you,' said Krem, wagging a knowing finger, 'some of the folks we have working on their backs at Skyhold are _very_ vocal about how much fun they're having.'

'Still doesn't mean I'm going to use that as an accurate measuring stick.'

He bounced his eyebrows. 'That ginger Oliver who beds up over the forge could give you an "accurate measuring stick."'

'Oh, stuff it.'

'Have done, stuffed him back for seconds. Enjoyed it immensely. That's what I'm trying to encourage you to _do_ , mate. Just let things happen and enjoy yourself.'

I stared into the fire. 'It isn't just a fun roll in the hay for me, all right?'

'I know,' said Krem.

'Pretty sure I'm in love with the guy and everything,' I added under my breath.

Krem nodded. 'I _know_. But there comes a time when you have to stop stalling, stop _wooing_ , and tell him to come to bed because you're both well up for it.'

'What if I haven't wooed enough? There are _steps_. I have a list.'

'Let's go over it.'

We did go over it.

I'd complimented Cullen, _out loud_. We'd discussed our relationship, _out loud_. I had showered him with gifts. I'd spent time with him; I went to see him to say good morning, sought him out to bid him goodnight. I'd held his hand, and kissed him when he seemed to fancy it (though only here and there, not yet on the lips), and I'd very nearly told him I loved him. I'd kept writing him poems, because he liked them.

I'd conveyed that I remembered and cared about things he'd told me early on, for Remembrance: the poem about Cullen not needing to fear censure had tackled that, as well as to tell him that he was Safe with me, and that I wanted our connection to Endure. The Serenade portion was squared away; part of that was Showing Off A Bit, too, because I'd had to practice for ages to be able to sing well enough to pull it off.

I'd given him Personal Gifts ( _very_ personal, in the sense of the ring and the copper items). With the poem that ended with the declaration that I'd like to fuck him until it made him curse, I'd pretty much covered Be Direct, not to mention climbing into his lap that one time; bringing him tea that was sentimentally important to him, and giving him the totem of Andraste in Repose meant that not only had I been Direct, I'd been Direct _and_ Sweet.

I'd drawn him a Portrait. And the wax cylinder that trapped a moment of my voice (whether Cullen had heard it yet or not) was something that would someday remind him of the point of all of this.

'Sounds like you're done,' said Krem. 'That's everything.'

'That can't be enough, can it? It can't be time to actually… do something more than that. Right?'

Krem shrugged. 'I'm not a professional romancier, Varric.'

'That's Orlesian for "novelist",' I pointed out.

'Well, I'm not one of them, either. I just think that the only way to overcome what's holding you back is to say "fuck it!" and keep moving forward despite the fear.'

'I don't want to disappoint him,' I said softly, barely audible over the flames. 'I talk big, I make a real show of it, yeah. I can write all kinds of things to win people over. But what if the reality isn't enough?'

'It is,' said Krem firmly. 'Do you trust him?'

'Probably more than anybody, at this point.'

'Then trust that he knows what he's talking about, when he says that he wants to be with you.'

I made a frustrated gesture, which got across that while that was a very good point and I had no immediate ideas for how to refute it, I still doubted that it was true.

'Look,' said Krem, 'take it from me, the practical angle has very little to do with it. Big, thrusting, steel-driving _aptitude_ doesn't determine how successful you are. If someone wants you, they want a combination of what they know, what they don't know, what they hope, and what they suspect. But if when the time comes their suspicions are proven wrong, that doesn't make it bad. That doesn't mean their hopes are dashed. That makes it _interesting_.' He prodded the fire with a stick and took another drink before continuing. 'He's wanted you for ages, right? He wanted you before he even knew that you _were_ you. Your looks and ability aren't an issue, and you need to stop _making_ them one.'

Curly hadn't known what Arch looked like, that was true. I'd never described him much at all. It was the words that won him over, the connection, the feeling of attraction and being pursued by someone, being wanted without a single stipulation. And when Arch had turned out to be me, Cullen still wanted those things, and (I realized, in retrospect) took very little time indeed to adjust to the idea that I'd been the one flirting with him, working him up, encouraging and comforting him all those long months.

And while I'd known for a while (thanks to Cullen's thoroughly seductive verses on the subject) that he did in fact think about the bedroom aspects of our future together, there was nevertheless a big question mark to all of it. He knew what he wanted and what (if inexperienced in that area) he suspected he would enjoy, but he didn't know what I was like, and somehow didn't make assumptions about it. He waited for information and responded accordingly. When I seemed reluctant to say what I wanted to say, he encouraged me to, and reminded me that he wanted whatever I might give.

Maybe by just being myself, I was good enough. Maybe I'd always been enough.

There was only one way to find out.

* * *

To say that a lot had been going on while I was wandering around the Wilds, growing moss and occasionally making my dinner of beetles, would be the understatement of the Age.

Once again—and I'm sure you're tired of me doing this, Reader—I want to point you to _All This Shit Is Weird_ , because that's where you can find a great deal of pertinent information on the subject of the Inquisitor's mysterious jaunt with Witch Lady and the consequences thereof. I wasn't there, and while I've recounted the tale well enough in the aforementioned book and could probably sum it up again, I'm not going to waste words repeating it here.

Suffice it to say that the final pieces were falling into place at around this time, and it was starting to become clear that we knew where the Elder Jerk was hanging out, and that we could, essentially, bang on the door and demand that he come out so we could kick his ass, and this errand could be undertaken… basically whenever we finished getting dressed for the occasion. Things seemed to be moving pretty fast. Despite having missed a lot, I was kind of glad I'd had the long ride back to Skyhold to recuperate from my trials in the wilderness. If we were going to kill this son of a bitch—properly, really kill him in a lasting way that would save the world from destruction and in some small way atone for the accidental part I played in his return to power in the first place—I was going to be there with big angry bells on.

What with one thing and another, I didn't get a chance to talk to Cullen, which sounds stupid. I write these words knowing that they sound incredibly flimsy and unlikely. Like, what, I didn't have _five minutes_ to run up to Cullen's office with a footstool, stand on that footstool, twirl him round and tip him over my outstretched arm and kiss him? Was I terrible at managing my time as well as my love life? And the answer to that is: well, yeah. Have you been paying attention for the past one-hundred-thousand-and-something words? Yeesh.

I'd wanted to fling wide the gates of the keep, give a hearty shout to the heavens that I had returned, and then run up the stairs to Cullen's office and proclaim my undying love for him so clearly and in such vivid detail that he would melt on the spot and swear his own undying love for me right back, and then we'd climb up the ladder to his bedchamber that probably still hadn't had its ceiling repaired because there were more important matters to attend to, and I'd do all the things he'd imagined, and then we'd do all the things _I'd_ imagined, and then come up with some more, and then have a break for sandwiches, and then do it again only the other way around.

But I didn't do that. Here's what I did:

I went to find my kids.

I hugged them, and I heard all about how Spike had gone out in the field with some of Nightingale's best people (without informing any overseeing adults first who might not enthusiastically support the education of young girls) and had stabbed a bad man through the neck and got blood _litch'rally all over everyone there_. I was informed that Niblet had engraved the picture of me for the Missing flyers _from memory_ and he hadn't even put goat legs on it, and how Chopper had hit a target with his axe and then hit the handle of that axe with _another_ axe like in tourney stories.

I was told how Snowdrop had been allowed to sit with Ruffles behind the big important desk and learn about diplomat-type things, and how Dollface had broken up with her girlfriend but they'd got back together again but broken up _again_ but she was all right with that because now Dollface was running a lucrative business piercing people's noses at a little table upstairs in the tavern while Cole told the piercing-receivers soothing things so it wouldn't hurt so much, and how Sparky was now so good at meditation that he could sit still for a whole hour and then light a whole hearth full of fire afterwards without even opening his eyes.

Kipper had been strangely absent from their games and hanging-out for a while, but Niblet had discovered by accident that Kipper had been spending most of his time in my office with Arthur and Milton, who were teaching him how to read Qunlat. And my librarians, unbeknownst to me, had had a little ceremony during Repose, and each now wore (on their left thumb, the traditional place) a ring made of a bit of braided silver wire.

I went to see the Inquisitor, whose time of day it was for Halfway Signing Things, and who gave me one of the best and most cursing-filled apologies I've ever heard in my life, which (in my opinion) more than made up for my being stranded. I was told all about what had happened with Morrigan and how we were going to punch Corypheus in the throat like, literally tomorrow, as soon as a few last items were sorted out. I said that by the way, I'd done all the proper wooing I'd been instructed to woo, and I was told something along the lines of _well done, good and faithful servant, I'm so glad you're alive and don't hate my guts, now please go shag Cullen already, I've got about a thousand very important things on my plate just now_ , and I left so those thousand things could be done.

I went to see Sparkler, who good-naturedly slapped me with a glove, and then told me all about Tevinter grieving customs and why it was actually a great (now unnecessary) honor to my memory that he'd painted his hands black, pausing helpfully now and again while I took notes for a future book. Then we went and had drinks (all of which went on his own tab), and at one point he hugged me for a long, quiet moment and said into the top of my head in a wobbly voice, 'Never fall off the edge of the map again, you abysmal reprobate,' and he added that my hair looked very nice when it wasn't pulled back at the top.

I kept wanting to talk to Cullen—felt like I'd explode if I didn't, honestly—but every time I stopped by his office to see if he was there, he wasn't. I wrote him a little verse every time I came around to check, leaving them on his desk, which was otherwise abnormally free of papers; several times that I came looking for him, I saw that the poems were gone. The last time I went up there before I turned in for the night, in the empty office there was a letter for me, written hastily at some point in his day, the flow of ink sporadic as if he hadn't dipped his pen at the intervals he typically did.

_Varric, I love you. I **need** you, and I know that when our work is done, we may at last be together without so much interference and interruption and disaster holding us at arms' length again and again. I prayed without ceasing when you were lost, and knowing you have returned to me is the greatest gift I can imagine. I hope that when we have dispatched the evil that darkens our doorstep, I may clasp you to me and not let go. I would feel your heart beating and hear your breath align with my own, and that is the finest future, this sweetest happiness that fills my dreams of you with light._

_When I received word that you had been found I wanted to ride out to meet you myself, but I was needed here. Damn my necessity! I am called to this purpose and I embrace it, I do my best to honor it, but I **long** for you, the pang of want like the snag of a thorn in my heart. The hour of battle once again approaches, and naturally I've been holed up in the War Room, planning with the Inquisitor and Josephine and Leliana and (reluctantly) this Morrigan woman who holds me in the utmost contempt for reasons I can't begin to fathom. My mind wanders, and I berate myself for it—are these not matters of life and death? But I wish I were with you, instead, and that all the troubles of the world might wait a single bloody hour so that I might hear your voice and kiss your mouth, and tell you all that I hold in my heart that I ache to say._

_It would be imprudent to go to you tonight. I know this. I fight the pull of this impulse with everything I have. I know that if I were to secure that fierce desire, if I were to reunite with you on the eve of so important a task, I may never wish to leave your arms and attend to it! In the Order there was a custom where, the night before one's deployment, you would go to whomever you fancied among your fellow Templars and profess your intentions, and (usually) fulfill those intentions as well, but I was never among those who sought to do so. When I was about to be sent on a significant mission or to take up a post elsewhere, I would spend the evening in meditation and prayer. And while I am no longer bound to the service of my former Order, I feel as ever called to the service of the Maker, and I know that this fight is one that will bring about so much positive change, will vouchsafe justice for so many who have long been denied it. Thus, I must deny myself once more; I kneel before the shrine, when in my heart I long only to kneel before you. I praise and beg the Maker for his guiding hand, when I would have your hands guide mine instead._

_When this is over, I am yours. Utterly, withholding nothing. I love you, and I will endure the trials ahead, with the knowledge that in so doing I will be a part of creating a peace in which we may dwell together after. I love you, and I need nothing else! Come the morning, we will depart for the Valley of Sacred Ashes. The Inquisition will arrive in force, and armed against our foe with all the wisdom and experience that this holy endeavor has given us. And I pray that you will wear your finest armor, and fire your sharpest bolts, and will fight alongside me to best our enemy for the last time. By your side I will be content that you are safe, and can make certain you don't do anything rash. I don't want to live without you._

_I will not lose you again._

* * *

Well, we won.

Obviously.

* * *

The great hall was packed with people, the tables groaning with the weight of the feast that Ruffles swore was far too last-minute to be up to snuff (but nobody agreed with her). The Inquisitor was meandering through the crowd, getting slapped on the back in congratulations and being asked breathlessly to recount the tale one more time; Nightingale had seemed to loosen up a little but was still keeping an eye on the doors, wary and suspicious that all was not yet well. I hadn't yet spotted Cullen—he'd either arrived before me and was tucked into the crowd somewhere, or had come in after I'd ended up surrounded, myself. Everyone was noisy with cheer and conversations were, by necessity, shouted, since Buttercup was sitting on Tiny's shoulders, directing the Chargers and a handful of scouts in a very loud rendition of one of the raunchiest and most historically inaccurate folk songs ever devised, accompanied by Gatsi on a tarabuka.

 _Oh, the bards all sing of Ferelden's king_  
_Of many an Age ago_  
_He ruled his land with an iron hand_  
_Though his morals were weak and low_  
_His only outer garment_  
_Was a dirty plaidweave shirt_  
_With which he tried to hide his hide_  
_But he couldn't hide the dirt_

 _He was dirty and lousy and full of fleas_  
_And he had his lovers by twos and threes!_  
_Maker bless the bastard king of Ferrr-el-DEN!_

'Some party, huh?' I said to Blackwall, who was within earshot enough to know he was being spoken to, but not enough to tell what I'd said on the first go.

'What?'

I raised my voice further. 'Some party, huh!'

'I didn't know Sera knew this song,' Blackwall told me, having come closer so we didn't have to shout as much. 'Isn't she Fereldan, herself?'

'Not on purpose,' I said.

Always a surprise when the atmosphere turned to revelry, Ruffles had once again acquired a big feathered hat from somewhere—possibly a gift from Johnny Cartwright, known hat-giver—and was taking part in the sing-song.

 _Now, Antiva's queen loved to frolic and preen,_  
_A lascivious wench was she,_  
_And she longed to fool with His Majesty's tool_  
_In the land across the sea_  
_So she sent a royal message_  
_With a royal messenger_  
_To beg the King of Ferrr-el-den_  
_To fornicate with her_

 _He was dirty and lousy and full of fleas_  
_And his terrible tool hung down to his knees!_  
_Maker bless the bastard king of Ferrr-el-DEN!_

'You told Cullen yet?' said Blackwall.

'What?'

'I said, _have you told Cullen?'_

'I heard you. I was asking, have I told him what?'

'That you love him, idiot.'

'All my friends seem to call me stupid these days,' I noted. 'Not that I'm unwelcoming of their points of view—'

'You had a choice, early on,' said Blackwall. 'Somewhere in there, you had a choice, and you made a bad one. But now you can make it right.'

I gave him a long look. 'Did you just essentially quote me back at me to get me to confess my feelings to a guy?'

Blackwall cleared his throat and found something to look away at. 'Yep.'

'You can't do that. That's my schtick.'

'I think I just have done.'

'Cheater.'

'Liar,' he shot back, then smirked at me through about eight acres of beard. 'Go to him, you bloody fool, or I'll throw you across the room myself.'

'I haven't _seen_ him yet!'

'He's over there.'

'Still can't see, Hero.'

Blackwall actually _held me up_ and dashed all hopes of maintaining my dignity for the evening, but I did manage to see where Curly was camped out: next to Dorian, who was pouring him some wine and (it looked like) trying to encourage him to sing.

 _When news of this fuss reached Minrathous_  
_The Archon told the court,_  
_"The queen prefers my rival_  
_For my instrument's too short!"_  
_So he hired a Crow named Zippity-Zap_  
_To give the queen a dose of clap_  
_To pass it along to the bastard king_  
_Of Ferr-el-DEN!_

 _He was dirty and lousy and full of fleas_  
_And he'd fire his weapon whenever he sneezed!_  
_Maker bless the bastard king of Ferrr-el-DEN!_

'Thanks, asshole,' I said when Blackwall put me down.

'Someone had to do it.'

'Someone really didn't.'

He shrugged. 'Too late.'

'Fuck off!' I said cheerfully.

'Good luck!' he called as I set off into the press of people.

 _When news of this foul, dastardly deed_  
_Did reach the royal shack_  
_The king swore by his favorite whore_  
_He'd pay the Archon back_  
_So he offered half his kingdom_  
_And a rather good gold mine_  
_To any loyal Southerner_  
_Who'd nut the Black Divine_

 _He was dirty and lousy and full of fleas_  
_How his bollocks did swing in the fine spring breeze!_  
_Maker bless the bastard king of Ferrr-el-DEN!_

I got sidetracked almost immediately when Iron Lady laid a hand on my arm to get my attention.

'Varric, darling,' she said, 'I wanted to tell you: I know I've been rather _vocal_ , in some settings, about my curiosity regarding your suitability and place within the Inquisition.'

 _'Have_ you?' I said, mock-innocently. 'I had _no_ idea!'

She gave me an indulgent smile. 'Only I've come to realize, you see, that you've played a very key role after all. I wish to apologize for my entirely _thoughtless_ remarks.'

'You? Apologize? Come on, there's no need.'

Iron Lady tipped her head to one side a little, clearly enjoying the back-and-forth. 'On occasion I may have gently, _indirectly_ implied that you were an onerous little twerp who did more harm than good.'

'I mean,' I gave her a big shrug to indicate that we might have been on the same page, there.

She surprised the hell out of me by giving me a rather maternal sort of kiss on the forehead. 'You've done at least one man a world of good, and that was worth it all.'

'I didn't know you were fond of him.'

'Oh, I'm not,' she said, with a silvery laugh. 'But _someone_ must be, mustn't they?'

I continued on through the whirling festivities, as Sera and Iron Bull belted out the next verse, Dalish thumping her "walking stick" against the floor along with the beat of the drum.

 _So the Arl of Amaranthine_  
_Saddled up and sallied forth_  
_To wage an assault on the Chantry vault_  
_Up in the noisome North_  
_He put on Andraste's vestments_  
_And let down his flowing locks_  
_And the Black Divine thought him very fine_  
_And the Arl gave him the pox_

 _He was dirty and lousy and full of fleas_  
_And he'd swallowed more seamen than the Frozen Seas!_  
_Maker bless the bastard king of Ferrr-el-DEN!_

When I stopped amid the throng to mooch off of somebody's forgotten tankard for courage, the Kid was there, sitting on the edge of a table and rocking slightly, swinging his foot over the floor.

'Tell him tonight,' said Cole firmly. 'Tell him instead of tease him, bring him peace and let him please you.'

'Giving relationship advice now?' I felt like, against all evidence of my own abilities, I'd taught him well.

'I have been the whole time,' he said. 'That's what friends do, isn't it? And you're my friend.'

I got a weird sentimental lump stuck in my throat. 'Thanks, Kid.'

'Solas was my friend, too,' he said, with a soft droop of disappointment. 'Seeking, slumbering, slipping when he'd thought it stable. He's… not coming back.'

'How do you know?'

'I _know_ ,' said Cole matter-of-factly.

'Ah.' Can't argue with that.

'He wanted you to be happy, too. He always liked you, you know.'

'Yeah, I know.'

The Kid looked at me from under the brim of his hat. 'I hope you find everything you were looking for, Varric,' he said in that fervent way of his, and it felt like a benediction. 'Go on. He's waiting.'

I went.

Sparkler had joined in the singers, now, leaving Cullen off by himself.

 _Well, the Archon wasn't happy_  
_When he learned of this disgrace_  
_And he swore by his Qunari whore_  
_That he'd solve this face to face_  
_So he saddled up his very fine steed_  
_And he prayed he would not flag_  
_And he fucked the whole Imperium_  
_To lighten his ballbag_

 _He was dirty and lousy and full of fleas_  
_And he had the odor of Orlesian cheese!_  
_Maker bless the bastard king of Ferrr-el-DEN!_

'Varric?'

I turned. Cassandra was standing there, looking serious as usual but with a slightly more relaxed stance, like she might actually laugh at some point in the evening, but hadn't yet.

'Need something?'

'I wanted to thank you,' she said, with difficulty. 'Despite my misgivings and distrust of you, you have always been loyal to us. You have done so much to bring us to where we are.'

'Just doing the job, Seeker.'

'You did more than any of us expected of you.' She seemed to be thinking along the same lines as everybody else I'd talked to in the past half-hour. 'The commander is a dear friend. If… you make him happy, I wish you only the best.'

'Huh. Well, thanks.'

I think she was just as startled as I was, when she hugged me.

 _The Archon reached Ferelden_  
_To beat down the king's front door_  
_But during the ride Tevinter's Pride_  
_Had stretched a yard or more_  
_And all the maids of Denerim_  
_Hiked up their silken gowns_  
_And shouted from the battlements:_  
_"TO HELL WITH FERELDEN'S CROWN!"_

'You are going to write a book about all of this, aren't you?' Cassandra said when we parted, holding me out at arm's length. It didn't really sound like a question, the way she said it.

'Already in the works, Seeker, I promise. I've just been talking to the Inquisitor about it and everything.'

'No, I mean—yes, about the Inquisition, obviously the story bears telling—but I meant about…'

'Hmmmm? Ye-es?'

She released my arms finally, her cheeks going a bit pink under her tan. 'Your _romance_.'

'Ah, shit, I don't know. That's up to Curly more than me, really.'

'I would read it gladly,' she said. 'I would love to know how all this came about.'

'You'll be the first to know when I put pen to paper about it.' I turned to go.

'You had better sweep him off his feet!' she advised my retreating back.

 _So the North and the South keep no accorrrrrd_  
_Since the Archon's staff beat the king's longsword_  
_Maker save the bastard king of Ferrr-el-DEN!_

There was an outbreak of finger-whistling and applause, and Buttercup leapt from Tiny's shoulders to take a bow, twirling off afterwards to flirt with Ruffles' secretary Adelette. I caught sight of the Inquisitor, who seemed to be exchanging instructions with Nightingale; I was given a sort of shooing gesture and a big wink from the former, and an unsettling grin from the latter.

The Dalish kid we recruited in the Plains had been encouraged to stand up on a chair by a few of his friends, and had begun to sing in a delicate tenor, in his regional dialect of Elvish, and when people noticed they started to quiet down so they could listen. I only caught a few words here and there, because I'm really only fluent enough to get myself into trouble. There was something about sleeping peacefully, softly smiling, and not fearing the leaves that tap against the tent in the night. Sentimental stuff. I saw Sparkler and Tiny sneaking off, as much as an ostentatiously-dressed mage and his enormous horned boyfriend _could_ effectively sneak, muffling laughter and stealing kisses the whole way.

At last, I reached Cullen. We leaned against the wall together, looking out at our fellow party-goers, not meeting each other's eyes.

'So,' I said.

'Yes,' he said.

'All right?'

'Fine.'

'Good,' I said.

'Good,' he replied.

We stood there like a couple of dumbasses, which we were.

If I'd had a flask on me, I would have slipped it across to keep the action moving along, but I didn't. I don't know about yours, but my party clothes don't involve a lot of practical stuff hanging off the belt. There's far more emphasis on fancy embroidery, and big gold frogging that's essentially just for show because it's not like I actually fasten my tunic closed with it.

I took a little step closer to him, just sort of scooting nearer along the wall. Our hands brushed. He took mine in his.

'I know all this isn't over,' said Cullen. 'Not truly. There are still over a dozen known rifts.'

I concurred. 'Not to mention the political sphere is in shambles.'

'There are still Venatori running around.'

'I hear they found another pocket of those Freemen guys who want to start shit.'

'There are still Templars and mages fighting all over Thedas,' he added.

'And we can't just stop printing the paper now that it's got off the ground and everybody likes it,' I said with a shrug.

'It seems there is much still to do,' Cullen agreed. 'But…'

'Yes?' I said, hopefully.

'Corypheus _has_ been vanquished.'

'Only you can get away with using a word like "vanquished" out loud, Curly.'

'What? It's an appropriate word for the circumstances.'

'I know, but most people would just say "dead", or, I don't know, "beaten."'

'I felt that "vanquished" lent the statement a more victorious ambiance.'

'Not gonna argue, there. It's victorious as fuck.'

He squeezed my hand a little. 'I'm glad you're here.'

'Yep, once again I didn't die. Funny how that works out. Makes you wonder if I've got some cockroach in the family tree somewhere.'

_'Varric.'_

'What? All I'm saying is that I'm tenaciously unsquashable.'

'Your squashability or lack thereof wouldn't be a concern if you didn't enjoy backflipping into the jaws of dragons so very often.'

'Who told you I do _that?_ Trust me, Curly, I've never enjoyed a damn thing in my life. I'm tired and cynical, and am content to unwind the skein of my existence entirely indoors, where the only thing that can threaten my well-being is a spelling mistake or a misplaced coaster.'

'You, cynical?' he said, eyes bright with suppressed mirth.

'Acutely.'

'Too tired to have a stroll with me in the moonlight, I suppose?'

'Just about. You'll have to drag me out there kicking and screaming.'

'I might just.'

'Or maybe I'll go along with it, if only to please you.'

He couldn't help smiling at me now, and had turned to take my other hand, as well. 'Bit disingenuous of you, Varric.'

'You think?'

'Insincerity runs so contrary to your usual form, as well.'

I rolled my eyes, grinning. 'Please, do you know me at _all?'_

'Quite well, I think,' said Cullen, turning to start on our way through the crowd to the back of the hall. 'And I'd like to know more, if you'll have me.'

* * *

The air was crisp and sweet, autumn creeping in at ground level in the form of fairy-wreaths that hung over the grass, furled into gentle vortices by our tread. Stars shone benevolently down, unknowing of the names mortals had assigned them and the meaning we decided they must convey. Walking along the ramparts, we could see Dagna and some of the boys from the forge out at the end of the long bridge, positioning mortars for the upcoming fireworks display, too far away to distinctly make out the conversation.

'Did you ever name your Mabari?' Cullen asked.

The dog in question was still being trained—mostly by Seeker, who apparently finds that kind of thing relaxing—and was starting to emerge from the tiny wrinkle-ball stage of puppy development into the enormous goofy feet stage.

'I think I'll call him Champ,' I said.

Cullen nodded approvingly. 'Good name for a dog.'

'I thought so, myself.'

We walked on.

'I read the letters,' I said, as we stopped to look out at the moons over the mountain peaks, the larger just beginning its yearly diminishment, the smaller, rosier one coming to the fore in preparation for harvest-time.

'I figured it couldn't hurt to have them delivered, even if you might not…'

'Yeah,' I said, silently thanking any entity who might listen for the opportunity to even have this conversation with him. Just standing at his side, whole and alive, was more than I'd thought I could manage.

We listened to the night sounds, and the distant music from the hall.

'You really didn't listen to the cylinder?' I said.

'I've told you as much,' Cullen reminded me.

'Well, yeah, but… I could have been dead, Curly. Didn't you want to know what was on it?'

In the evening light, Cullen looked tired but indescribably relieved, and the lines around his eyes seemed more from smiling than from worry, now. Maybe I was just seeing things. 'I'll find out if I ever need to, but I suspect that I won't.'

'Nice to know I inspire such confidence,' I joked.

'I thought, perhaps,' Cullen said softly, turning me to face him, his hand against my face, thumb skimming my cheekbone in a tiny caress, 'you might care to tell me, yourself.'

I did tell him. I told him out loud, emphatically, about six times. It just popped out like I'd been waiting to say it forever, which I sort of had been. And Cullen, damn him, with his crinkly-eyed smile and the starlight spinning white gold through his curls, said, 'You know, I _thought_ you might.'

We looked into each other's eyes and saw every star in them. I drew closer to him, and he to me.

A minor explosion startled the both of us, and Dagna could be heard laughing down along the bridge, announcing, _Whoops, that was a feisty one! All fine here, everything's fine. Still got all our parts, haven't we, lads!_

Cullen and I looked to each other again, and then cracked up, tension bleeding off in a rush, and the moment could have been broken, but here's the thing: it wasn't. A lot of things could have broken, but they hadn't, or we'd found a way to mend them when they had.

We didn't press against each other in passionate abandon. Nobody swooned or hung off the other person's arm, hair blown dramatically by the wind. We just exhaled together for a moment, smiling, joined by a few points of contact, our hearts syncing up, and it was perfect.

With time, the mud had settled and the water had become clear.

We didn't _have_ to kiss.

But we did.


	12. The End, The End, The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who's wondering, yes, I got Curly's permission to put his letters in this book. What, you thought I'd just fling his secret yearnings into the public eye without so much as a by-your-leave? Please. I'm an asshole, but I'm not _that_ kind of asshole. What do you take me for? Of course I asked. I didn't even have to beg.

Well, there it is. Now you know. Are you satisfied? No? Tough shit, you already paid for this book, or put yourself out there by borrowing it off a friend who knows how it ends. If you've got any complaints, don't hesitate to write them down in a big letter, and then go out and drop that letter down a dried-up old well so I never have to hear about it.

If you've read this and are _still_ wondering what the hell was happening in the foreground while all this went on, I have no idea why you made it this far in the first place. Look up what the Inquisition was about. Somebody might even still have copies of The Herald lining the bottom of their blanket chest, or cut up to line baskets of vinegar chips. Ask around. Badger your friends. I've written a whole damn book about it already and, in the intervening years, have probably forgotten some of the cleverest bits. If you've got eye strain, there's plenty of drinking songs about the whole business, or, if words aren't really your bag after all this effort, I could point you to a series of (I'm told) very racy and factually imprecise engravings.

Granted, how the last chapter of this book ended isn't how this _story_ ended. Technically it hasn't ended yet, though I'm not making any "until death" sort of promises, because for one thing that seems like asking for Death to show up just to laugh while kicking you down a big hole with spikes at the bottom, and for another thing, I know how much people can change. I've changed a lot, myself. But for now, it's enough—more than enough—and it's good.

A couple years after what you just finished reading, the Exalted Council happened. Even if you're reading this ten ages from when I wrote these words (doubtful, considering), you're probably aware of how all that went down, so I'm not wasting paper on it. Common knowledge, at this point. We all know what the lady in a shovel-shaped hat told important people. We all know who did what and who put a corpse in there and how the fate of the Inquisition was decided.

Amidst the post-Corypheus cleanup, I had the misfortune of being shoehorned into the dubiously honorable viscountcy of Kirkwall, which, as you might expect, requires maintaining a somewhat stable residence whereby I might govern the place at the length of a ten-foot pole. And there was a lot of viscounting to be done, let me tell you. My city is one of those shambling wrecks where the second you fix something, the thing right next to it falls to pieces. I mean that both figuratively _and_ literally—entire buildings have been completed, ribbon-cutting ceremony and all, only to have someone slam a door too hard and the structure next door fall down like a drunk at the end of a raging bender.

Same goes with political parties, by the way. And shipping companies, and at least half a dozen of the experimental new religions that have been popping up like deep mushrooms in shady corners. Half a dozen _more_ have proven their staying power, though. After all, the Chantry has had a hard time getting a foothold in Kirkwall again ever since the last one... well, you know what happened to the last one. The big-hats seem to regard the city as cursed, which has led to a certain number of popular folkways being established in lieu of official Chantry practice, and in some neighborhoods there's an almost Rivaini feeling about the place. Cheerful flower-covered skulls painted on the doors, black chicken bones dangling from balconies, strange incense drifting down the alleys. If you ask anybody in the street, they'll swear up and down that they're Andrastian; they do the swearing to new gods and friendly spirits with a lot of crispy consonants in their names, I'll give you that, but they sure are _earnest_ about it. I like it over there. Good food, good stories, and a very personalized approach to handling your deities (often with both hands). I hope they stick around.

My seneschal has an apprentice in seneschalery these days: a quick-thinking go-fer and general things-keeper-tracker-of, who can interface with the average person in ways that Bran, in his officiousness, can't manage. Now Snowdrop, who always struck me as a city kid in the first place, knows the ins and outs of Kirkwall like she's been here her entire life. She's taken to visiting Daisy in the new elven quarter (we've only just completed construction and dropped a tree down a hole in the middle) and is apparently learning all sorts of interesting knots. She keeps in touch with the other Herald kids—though they're hardly kids anymore, Maker's balls, some of them are old enough to get married—and here's where things stand:

Chopper entered the Grand Tourney with panache and a lot of throwing axes, and not only survived but brought home a little crown of sage for his efforts in the Projectiles category. Out of all my newsies, he was the most interested in the mechanical aspects of the job, and has since teamed up with a couple of mages and artificers to invent a fully-automated press. I've received word that while nothing has blown up yet, it's only a matter of time, and Chopper awaits the day with gleeful anticipation, probably rubbing his hands together and grinning in an unnerving fashion.

Dollface is still in the printing business, herself, but she's started doing these little short-run magazines with comic stories in them, answers to letters asking for advice, and hand-to-hand combat guides for young girls. There's also apparently a recurring column about how to pierce various body parts, and I'm happy to say I haven't had to endure that sort of language in any other part of my life for a while. "You really have to jam it in there and it'll bleed a lot" is not, as a rule, something that I encourage in my viscountcy, so it was a breath of fresh (if gory) air amid my piles of boring bureaucratic post.

Kipper, against most people's original assumptions of his approach to life, converted to the Qun, which baffled us all. He's been going around with a knapsack and a big book, into which he's transcribing something he's calling the Hearth Canticle—a collection of Qunic (is it Qunic? to do with the Qun, is the meaning I'm aiming for) parables and loosely-related cantos and epigrams passed down via oral tradition among practicing Qunari, Viddathari and Vashoth-who've-converted who live outside of Qunari lands and don't have any local priests. The bits he's copied out and sent me are pretty good, and I've given him some advice on pacing and delivery. In one of his more recent letters he informed me that he's met a nice Vashoth girl named Charisma Vistaarse, with curly horns and a penchant for bright yellow Vitaar, and they've started traveling together because apparently Spike was right and Kipper really _is_ terrible at defending himself against hypothetical murderers. Charisma may or may not have been a bandit against whom Kipper was unable to defend himself and who took pity on him because he was cute, but you didn't hear that from me. Kipper swears in no uncertain terms that if they ever have any properly big adventures, I get to write the story.

Niblet, my erstwhile apprentice, became a herald. Like an actual _heraldry_ herald, which is something people need around more than ever, what with all the new alliances popping up, old fusty noble houses dying out, and the establishment of new cities in Ferelden and the Dales. As a favor to me, he designed the sign for the Chariot—the pub that replaced the Hanged Man after it was burned down—and it's really good. There's sphinxes on it, which meant he was able to exercise his talents at engraving enormous pairs of tits, which is not an ability typically employed in his other works.

Sparky traveled to Tevinter with Sparkler and has been jollying up the elven population there with word and gesture, getting them involved in Dorian's political machinations. Sparkler informs me that Sparky applied for and received proprietary registration of Spell Distinctivity, which means that one of his fancy pyro tricks had to be _recognized by the government_ as being a method he'd invented. They're fussy about that stuff up north; any spell invented on Tevinter soil technically _belongs_ to Tevinter, which means that by making things up you're bolstering the crumbling Imperium and proving its alleged greatness, which gets you a lot of favors from the kind of guys who sit in a big official room lined with chairs all the way up to the rafters, so _everybody_ wants to have their name on some Maneuver or Application or Technique. And due to Sparky being an elf, and being a foreign visitor to Tevinter at the time of his bid for the patent, this was a pretty big deal, and Sparkler's hand in it getting pushed through the senate has set the tone for several long-pending developments in the area of elvhen recognition.

Spike is a full-fledged assassin, now, one of the youngest on record, or she would be if anybody kept records of that kind of thing. The commissions she receives are mostly on behalf of the deaths of corrupt religious leaders, and government officials who supported or enabled the quality-of-life gap that exists between human city life and what goes on in alienages. I hear she's done a couple pro bono breach-of-promise gigs, too, particularly when some human guy claimed he'd marry an elf he got up the duff and then skipped town. Last I heard she's gone to Antiva to study under some damn guy everyone calls The Black Shadow, which is a pretty boneheaded choice as far as ominous epithets go. That's like calling yourself The Sharp Dagger. The Wet Water. Can't put that kind of thing in a book, no one would take it seriously. But apparently Spike does—and Spike is her professional name, by the way, of which I'm a little bit proud—and she's "hoping to learn _even more_ ways to be an exceeding botheration unto targets deserving of abrupt inhumation."

Don't look at me, I didn't teach her to talk like that.

And what about dear Curly, you ask? He's in Ferelden, probably out for an evening's stick-throwing stroll with his dogs. He runs a sort of Old Friends Templar Sanctuary down there now, helping get them off the blue stuff, giving them a place to go to be with people who understand what they've lived through, and I think he still unrolls a twelve-minute speech when he stands up in front of them all at mealtimes. And there's the fact that small, intimate groups gather in a room with a big hearth on alternating days, drinking hot cider and laying on the rug with an assortment of dogs, discussing how they feel about what they'd been taught and how it compares to reality. These sessions have started being called "talk healing", and the whole idea is to air your grievances and bare things you were never allowed to talk about before—hidden shame, self-doubt, all that shit nobody wants to admit that they feel. Some people (Handsome Francis among them) are even doing their talking one-on-one with Cullen.

I hear the old commander's pretty good at this stuff. He's always had a sympathetic sort of forehead.

Arch Tarstrive is alive and well, and his— _my_ fifteenth volume of verse is on its way to press as I write this epilogue. I have a play in the works, as well, at the urgings of Orlesian fans: a satirical romp about sundered lovers and mistaken identity during the War of the Lions, written in _terza rima_ , a verse structure I now regard with intense regret.

For anyone who's wondering, yes, I got Curly's permission to put his letters in this book. What, you thought I'd just fling his secret yearnings into the public eye without so much as a by-your-leave? Please. I'm an asshole, but I'm not _that_ kind of asshole. What do you take me for? Of course I asked. I didn't even have to beg.

He did this ridiculous thing—I can barely believe it even now—he said, 'Print them if you like, I'm not troubled by it. I'll tell you all about the ones I threw away, as well. If you would have the world know how I fell for you, then I would be honored.' This from a guy who used to keep such a tight lid on his feelings that nothing short of a near-fatal storm at sea could get him to open his damn mouth about how he felt about anything. So I got a guy who's quick with the character development _and_ looks good draped in furs with one leg crooked over the armrest of my chair.

What a _catch_ , right?

He and I still write to each other as often as we can, which is a relationship situation I'm familiar with in the long term. Though unlike some people, he actually writes back more than once every eight to ten months, and he didn't get married off to some Smith Caste fuckhead with no creativity in his soul. (The odds of that happening to a human man are rather unlikely, I'll grant you, but there's always been a cyclic nature to the disasters that assert themselves in my life, so I wouldn't have been too surprised if the chips had fallen that way after all.) Sometimes he'll send me a letter, dated and with the time of day at the top and everything, and the next one I receive was written on the same day, with all the things he forgot to tell me, its arrival staggered by having been sent by a separate courier. It's endearing that he still does that, and he's even started trying his hand at drawing, to amuse me. Terrible with faces, but the man can do an excellent salt cellar.

Being a viscount isn't all paperwork and strained diplomacy: there's also a salary. Didn't expect that, huh? They actually pay you to deal with their shit! (I'm not complaining—it's not like being a king, where people sort of desperately pelt you with gold to win favors or titles. Viscounts can't really entitle people without a bunch of other guys signing off on it first, or at least that's what they keep telling me whenever I do it on a whim.) There was a sizeable chunk of coin shoved my way when I allowed the local nobs to saddle me with a gilded circlet and overbearing lackey, and I used some of that money to purchase a nice little summer house in Ferelden.

I know, I know, "nice" and "summer" typically don't go in the same sentence as "Ferelden", unless that sentence is "It was nice to spend the summer as far away from Ferelden as possible, all the better to avoid being murdered by midges the size of a draught horse," but I had my reasons. I tell people it's because not even the most public-spirited martyr wants to spend the summer in Kirkwall, because summer in Kirkwall is like trying to breathe scalding hot soup made of garbage and seawater, but the real reason is this: By complete accident, that nice little house is a fifteen-minute stroll away from the Sanctuary, and therefore it made perfect sense for it to be Cullen's not-only-in-the-summer house. See what I did there?

He has an office with proper windows, I have a library with a comfy chair and not even a suggestion of spiderwebs. And when the warmer months approach, I sign off on a bunch of "if this happens, do that" kind of executive orders in the event of a stupid and predictable emergency, and I make the crossing to Ferelden. Yes, I willingly go outside and get in a boat to go see him. That's how you know it's serious.

Thanks in equal measure to both Johnny Cartwright and Seeker, Cullen has an unreasonable number of dogs, named (as is traditional) after Fereldan virtues. There's Assurance, Lively, Providence, Restoration, Steadfast, and Hero (after the Hero of Ferelden, not Blackwall); I bring Champion along to complete the set. And while I'm not _really_ a Dog Person, they all seem to be Varric Dogs, so any time I show up at the end of the road I have to fight my way through the surging tide of big jubilant slobbery beasts to get to the house, where Cullen is inevitably waiting on the front porch, arms crossed as he leans against a post, grinning at me fondly and shaking his head.

There. You happy? I certainly am, and to reach that conclusion you've willingly muddled through more than anyone could _ever_ conceivably want to know about my personal life. Close the damn book and go out and live your own!

 _In times when your mettle is put to the test_  
_And you take all the shit Fate can hand you,_  
_Know, my friend, in the end you may settle and rest_  
_In the arms of someone who can stand you._

—V.T. 9:47 Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a big acknowledgement to some of my favorite dead dudes:  
> terry pratchett (gnu), whose writing has gotten me through a lot  
> p.g. wodehouse (the funniest), whose jeeves & wooster series not only inspired me to go these sorts of directions with my writing, but also led to my coming out  
> a.e. housman (#1 sad gay), who taught me that a simple poem is sometimes the punchiest  
> walt whitman (#1 long-winded bisexual), who taught me you can get away with tying together a bunch of scattered images and self-indulgent description porn  
> alexander pushkin (you hurt me so much!!!), whose wit and poignancy still keeps me up at night sometimes  
> oscar wilde (the ultimate quippy angstmaster), who was... Himself  
> various other poets whose work inspired me throughout, and one fellow who probably isn't dead but i cannot recall his name. we met in a bookshop and i listened to a reading, but have since lost the little volume of his poems in my travels. whoever you are, you meant a lot to me at a time when i nearly became a fiction; without your verses, i never would have lived the best parts of my story.
> 
> v&v has an annotated film-length soundtrack (because i'm That Guy), which is available for dubiously legal download [here](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1p-G2CuRVEXy7hDGj1-XMQmgjGEkg2Hz9)
> 
> this project got me through some very difficult times, and i hope that my passionate urge to write this has added a little happiness to somebody's day. thank you for sticking with me. ♥


End file.
